


Who You Are

by awkwardblogger



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Actually they all have PTSD, Adopted Children, Adopted Sibling Relationship, Allison is a proud black woman, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Author has not read the comics, Ben Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Ben Hargreeves is Dead, Canonical Character Death, Canonical Child Abuse, Culture, Family Drama, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Fertility Issues, Five is Jewish, Fluff and Angst, Good Brother Diego Hargreeves, Good Parent Grace Hargreeves, Grace is the best mom, Hallucinations, Honestly they all have issues, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Torture, Isolation, Klaus Hargreeves Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Klaus Hargreeves Needs Help, Luther has issues, Luther isn't a monster he's just oblivious, Mama's boy Diego, Miscarriage, No Incest, Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy) Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Prostitution, Protective Ben Hargreeves, Protective Diego Hargreeves, Protective Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy), Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Romance isn't important to the plot but its here a little, Sexual Assault, Sexual Harassment, Stuttering Diego Hargreeves, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Vanya Hargreeves Deserves Better, but knows some stuff about them, five is sephardic, no beta we die like idiots, these kids need therapy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-05-02 03:42:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19191205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awkwardblogger/pseuds/awkwardblogger
Summary: Grace makes sure her children grow up knowing where they come from and their cultures. For Each child this means something different.Also, the kids are closer with their family because I fucking said so.ORI got inspired by a few fics where the umbrella kids were connected to their roots and a few Jewish Five fics so here we are.





	1. Luther

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [I have a name, goddamn it](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18094175) by [spikedpoppies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spikedpoppies/pseuds/spikedpoppies). 
  * Inspired by [arachis hypogaea](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19178734) by [aelisheva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aelisheva/pseuds/aelisheva). 
  * Inspired by [Finding My Religion](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18144860) by [spikedpoppies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spikedpoppies/pseuds/spikedpoppies). 
  * Inspired by [A Mother's Love](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19029223) by [nishiki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nishiki/pseuds/nishiki). 



> I'm not a great writer but I got inspired by some other fics and decided I had to do this. I put the stories that inspired me the most so yall can read them if you haven't already.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vanya didn't write her novel in this story.

On October 1st 1989 Katherin Walker was teaching a class when she suddenly went into labor. She had not been pregnant when the day began but suddenly found her stomach growing wildly, her water breaking and contractions racking her body. She gave birth in an ambulance on her way to the hospital. The EMTs informed her she had given birth to a baby boy before taking the baby to be seen by one doctor and her to be seen by another. Her head was spinning, everything had happened so fast. When the baby was returned to her, she knew she didn’t want it. It wasn’t anything personal, she had just never wanted children and she felt no connection to the baby in her arms. It was a whirlwind of doctors and nurses, trying to show her how to mother the baby but she was just not interested. She had begun to talk to the nurses about adoption by the end of the night and the next morning a man showed up and offered money for the baby. She looked down at the baby and then back at the man.

“I don’t need the money, you can have him.” She told the man.

The man grinned and signed the formal adoption papers. A nurse frowned when the man, Reginald Hargreeves, signed the child’s birth certificate as “Number One Hargreeves” but didn’t say anything. Reginald had a nanny take the newly named baby back to the mansion that night while he went on to find more children. Katherin never saw the baby again and when she returned back to work the next week, she acted like the sudden birth never happened.

Number One was a quiet baby, he began showing signs of being abnormally strong when he was only a month old, already able to hold things heavier than he should. Reginald was quick to test just how strong the child was and by the time Number One was a toddler, he and his siblings were used to the tests their father put him through. Most of their playing was actually tests and research for Reginald, the nannies would monitor how the children reacted to certain toys and situations, write down their strengths and weaknesses and what other children they were close to. Number One and Number Three took to each other instantly as toddlers, though Three was bossier than her brother, they were both stubborn. Number One was eager to please however, especially when it came to the Nannies and his Father. He wasn’t as fascinated in learning as Number Five but he would beg his nannies for stories about the moon and space. Even as a toddler, Number One wanted to be the best and be the first to do things, his nannies and father only encouraged that.

Everything about the children was documented from when they first smiled, first rolled over, first sat up, first stood, walking, potty training, favorite foods, favorite toys and favorite nannies. Number One preferred Nanny Natalie, one of the younger nannies who would often sing to the children. She didn’t approve of everything Reginald did, though, and when she confronted him about pushing the children too hard, she was fired. Number One cried when Nanny Natalie left, but Number Three distracted her brother until he moved on.

When Number One was four, all the nannies went away and Grace(“Call me Mom”) came. Number One would barely remember it when he grew up, but Mom had changed things. First of all, she was more efficient than any of the nannies they had ever had before. Second, she seemed to care for them more. She always obeyed their father but she always paid close attention to them and would praise each child on things their father never would. As the kids got older Grace began using lunch to serve them strange food. They were six when this started and lunch was the one meal a day their father didn’t join them. No one questioned it for a month until Number One decided to be the leader he is and ask her in front of all of his siblings.

“Mom, why do you do this stuff for lunch?” He asked her.

Grace smiled sweetly at Number one. “Why it’s the cuisine of where each of you are from, sweetie. Mondays are for Number One, Tuesdays for Number Two, Wednesdays for Number three, Thursdays for Number Four, Fridays for Number Five, Saturdays for Number Six and Sundays for Number Seven.”

The children were all stunned but the following day, a Friday, Number Five asked Grace where he was from as she set out lunch. She told him that he was from Istanbul, Turkey, with a bright smile and told them the name of all the Turkish food they were having today. The next day Number Five informed his siblings he was learning Turkish and Hebrew with Grace now. Number One was never one to be outdone so even though it was Saturday, Number Six’s day, he asked Mom where he was from and she told him: Bristol, England. They spoke English in England so instead of asking to learn the language, he asked Mom to teach him the history. Number One spent his private lessons with Grace learning about Kings and Queens, battles with Vikings and brave knights. Number One was in awe of all the stories, it seemed never ending. Some were better than others, but he loved learning it. He continued his private lessons with Grace and they eventually moved onto geography, literature and other things about his home country. 

When they were nine, Father decided they would have names so the press wouldn’t ask questions when they went public. Mom came to them one on one to name them. She came to Number One first, finding him in his room listening to a record.

“Number One, your father has decided it’s time for you and your siblings to get names.” She announced as she entered his room.

“But we already have names.” Number one said, blinking in surprise.

“No dear, you have numbers. But from now on, you are Luther,” She told him.

Grace stroked his blonde hair and left the room, leaving the newly named Luther to sit in confusion. By the end of the day, everyone had a name expect for Five. Luther had tried to get Five to explain why he didn’t have a name but all he got was a sneer as an answer. Luther sighed and went to find Three, now dubbed Allison. Allison was ecstatic about the new names and kept saying hers over and over again. Luther was still caught off guard by the names, but if it made Allison happy, he’d deal with it.

He only ever questioned the names one more time, when he asked Mom why their names were all so different and strange. None of them except Allison had names like people on TV and in books. 

“All of your names are part of your heritage.” She told him.

“Our birth moms named us?” He asked with wide eyes. 

“Not all of you. Klaus’ birth family named him, but yours did not, Luther. I meant that your names are connected to the country you’re from, Sweetie.” She explains.

Years later Luther would look up the meaning of his name, it originated from German speaking places, meaning “army people” but became popular in all parts of Europe. At the time, this made Luther swell with pride. He was strong, he was a good soldier, a good leader, he is Number One. Even his name showed that.

When they were eleven, The Umbrella Academy was unveiled to the world and suddenly they bombarded by adoring fans, the media, and bad guys. They became busier than ever with the missions piling high and Father having them interviewed, photographed, and paraded in front of the press. Father was pushing them harder than ever, reminding them constantly that they had to be on their top form to stop crime and save the world. Luther didn’t mind the press or the pressure, but Allison loved the media attention. Their other siblings, however, did not like any of it. He started to see his siblings pull away from their father, using any excuse they could find, including culture. Five started it, demanding time for prayers and refusing to do anything on Fridays, claiming it was due to “Shabbat”. As the leader, Luther was ordered by their father to get his brother out of making these demands, but Five refused to budge and their other siblings followed Five’s example.

“I am disappointed in you, Number One. How can you ever be an effective leader if you can’t even get your brother under control?” Reginald lectured the young boy.

Luther’s eyes went to the floor and a knot formed in his throat. There’s nothing Luther hates more than disappointing his father. He’s Number One, he’s supposed to be better than this. He had to be the best, it was what Father needed from him and failure wasn’t and isn’t an option.

Luther thought their rebellion was stupid and immature, Father knew what was right. Why would they want to pull away from Father? Luther couldn’t deny to himself that he was angry his siblings wouldn’t listen. If they had just listened Father would know what a great Number One he is! At least Luther and Father came from the same country, it made Luther feel proud and smug. He knew his siblings immaturity would come to bite them, so when they were thirteen and Five ran out the door in a fit of rage, Luther had only felt annoyance, then smugness. He was right, rebellion would only hurt his siblings. But then Five never came back.

“Father, when are we going to search for Five?” Luther asked, his siblings behind him as they stood at the edge of their Father’s office.

Five had been gone since yesterday and the kids were starting to get anxious. Vanya, who has always been closest to Five, was a down right mess. 

“You won’t. The Umbrella Academy has more important missions to deal with then searching for an insolent brat. Number Five will come back on his own.” Reginald said.

Vanya sucked in a harsh breath while Diego stepped forward. “W-w-w-what if h-he doesn’t c-come back?”

“Speak clearly, Number Two!” Sir Hargreeves barked.

Diego flinched and opened his mouth to repeat himself but Klaus steps forward so his brother doesn’t have to repeat himself. “He asked ‘what if Five doesn’t come back?’ You’re not just going to let our brother rot out there, are you?!”

“You mind your tongue, Number Four!”

Klaus huffs and storms away, shouting over his shoulder “if you won’t look for him, fine, but don’t expect me to do the same.”

Klaus recruited Ben, Diego and Vanya into searching the grounds and even around the block. Allison and Luther could hear their Father’s furious rant when the four siblings returned.

“You insolent whelps! You do not disobey me!”

“We only wanted to find Five. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

**_CRASH!_ **

“Vanya!” Klaus, Ben and Diego cried out.

“You worthless girl! You are nothing but an ordinary, good for nothing, talentless child! You should count yourself lucky I let you stay here!” Reginald had snarled.

Luther and Allison had been horrified to overhear all of this. They couldn’t hear the rest of it, but Klaus, Ben and Diego were all taken for personalized training and didn’t return for days. Vanya had a nasty bruise on her face and seemed out of it. Luther saw Allison try relentlessly to get Vanya to talk to her, but Vanya only seemed hazy, unable to follow along in a conversation and drowsy. Luther didn’t like what happened but he knew his father wouldn’t do anything that wasn’t necessary. Luther didn’t avoid punishment either, his father found him after the disobedient children had been taken care of.

“As I’m sure you’re aware Number One, Numbers Two, Four, Six and Seven went searching for Number  Five after I specifically said not to.” Reginald said in a stiff voice.

“Yes sir.” Luther confirmed, already knowing what’s coming.

“I’m disappointed in you, Number One. As their leader you should have prevented them from disobeying.”

“I tried sir.”

“Do not talk back to me, boy! Clearly you didn’t try hard enough, or they wouldn’t have disobeyed! I am revoking your music privileges until you get a better grip on your siblings.”

Later that night Allison snuck into Luther’s room, teary eyed and bottom lip trembling. 

“We should have gone with them.” Allison had whispered.

“They broke the rules, Allison! We were right not to!” Luther huffed.

“But maybe if all of us went Dad wouldn’t have been so mad!” Allison argued.

“They brought this on themselves.” Luther stated gruffly.

Allison looked at him with a sad expression before leaving his room. They didn’t talk about it again.

Life went on and the lower numbers continued to push their father’s patience. In hushed voices Luther heard them talk about leaving the Academy. Klaus was sneaking out of the house even more after Five’s disappearance. He came back reeking of booze and weed most nights. The nights Klaus didn’t sneak out of the house, Luther heard him sneaking into either Ben’s room or occasionally Vanya’s. Vanya had started leaving out snacks at night after Five left and turned the lights on. Luther followed his father’s example and huffed at her childish actions. Vanya became even more secluded and closed off, but whenever any of them went to her, she was eager to spend time with them. As far as Luther knew only Ben and Diego regularly sought her out. Allison was becoming more enamored by hollywood and fame. Ben still read more than the rest of the siblings but had started sneaking pamphlets for colleges in. Diego was continuing to be more aggressive and rebellious towards dad and Luther while getting closer to Vanya and Klaus.

Luther found their behavior childish and ridiculous. Why would they want to leave the academy? Preventing the apocalypse was their destiny! People need them! Just because they’re too immature to see that and too self centered to take the pressure Father put on them didn’t mean they were any less needed. All of them, expect Vanya, have a duty to the public to be there, protect them. 

When Luther was seventeen everything went wrong. A mission went awry and Ben lost control of the monsters that lived inside him. They ripped Ben apart and all Luther could do was sit and watch in horror. Klaus wouldn’t stop screaming, Mom had to sedate him he was so hysterical. Allison cried for days and Diego blamed Dad. They had a public funeral that Vanya wasn’t allowed to attend and a private funeral in courtyard. At the private funeral they started out by speaking of their fondest memories of Ben. 

“He was such a good brother.” Allison said through a choked sob as she finished sharing a memory. “I just can’t believe he’s gone.”

“He shouldn’t be. He should still be here.” Diego huffed, glaring at Father.

“He died in the line of Duty, Number Two. It is an honorable death.” Reginald said in a scolding tone.

Klaus giggled, earning himself a glare from Luther and Allison.

“He shouldn’t have been on the line of duty in the first place! He was a kid! He didn’t even like these stupid fucking missions!” Diego snapped.

“Mind your tone, Number Two!” Reginald barked.

“This is Ben’s funeral, Dad. The least you could do is pretend you gave a shit about him! He died for you! He never got to do any of the things he wanted to do, fill any of his goals, or follow any of his passions because of you!”

Vanya gave a humorless laugh. “Ben always wanted to go to South Korea, see where he’s from. He wanted to go to college too, become a teacher. He should have left when he had the chance.”

The tension in the air rose and Vanya turned and left the courtyard, leaving everyone to stew in the knowledge that if Ben had gone, he’d probably still be alive right now.

For some reason Vanya’s words stuck with Luther. He hadn’t known Ben wanted to go to South Korea. He knew Ben wanted to go to college but he wasn’t aware Ben wanted to be a teacher. What other dreams had his brother left unfulfilled? Luther had never had any goals or desires outside of the academy and making his dad happy. His siblings had all seen futures away from the academy, but not Luther, this was his life. He knew some of his siblings cared deeply about where they came from and their biological families but not Luther. As a kid it held interest but as he got older, it meant less and less to him. He didn’t think about his birth mother and had never even thought of what his life would be like if Father hadn’t adopted him. 

A week after Ben’s death Klaus left in the middle of the night with the clothes on his back and all the trinkets he could fit in his pockets. The months afterwards Luther tried to hold the remaining team together but they kept pulling further and further away. On their eighteenth birthday Diego packed up all his things and left, Allison following two days later.

“Why do you have a suitcase packed?” Luther had asked, standing in his sister’s room.

“I’m leaving, Luther. I’m going to Hollywood.” Allison announced with a smile.

“Wait what? Why?” Luther demanded, blinking in confusion.

“I was offered a part in a movie! I’ve got an agent and he thinks I could be really successful!” Allison practically squeals with excitement.

“But what about the academy? People need us.” 

Allison sighed. “Luther, this is my dream, to go to hollywood, be an actor. I’m not going to give it up. There’s police who are perfectly capable of handling crime, Luther. We don’t need to stay here, you don’t need to stay here. How bout you pack a bag and come with me?”

“I can’t leave! Police can’t handle crime, you know this, Allison! We can’t just turn our backs on Dad and the people who need us!”

Allison shook her head softly and grabbed her bag. “Goodbye Luther.”

Luther stood there stupidly as Allison left the room and minutes later, left the house.

For the rest of the month Vanya and Luther were the only kids left in the house. Luther was lonely but he didn’t try to connect with Vanya. She was ordinary, she wouldn’t understand. At the end of the month, much to Luther’s surprise, Vanya left for college. For the first time in Luther’s life he was without his siblings and he was lonelier than he’d ever been in his entire life. Allison called at first but stopped by the time they were twenty. The others never called but sometimes Vanya sent invitations to her concerts, Luther never went, despite Mom’s urging.

Luther continued to do missions, just because the others had given up their duty didn’t mean he would. He tried to keep strong, but for the first time in his life, on days he was especially lonely, he thought about what his life would be like if he was ordinary, if he had never been adopted. Would he have been a soccer fan like so many in the U.K.? Would he have a really strong accent? Would he still love 80’s pop music? Would he still be in awe of space? Would his birth mother be an overbearing mom or would she have been a relaxed mom? He would never know. Even throughout this Luther never seriously thought about leaving the academy. How could he leave the people who needed him? How could he leave Dad? So even though he had no one but Dad, Pogo and Mom, no friends, no goals and no hobbies, he stayed.

At age twenty-five a mission went horribly wrong and Luther almost died. He woke up to find his body not his own. It was too hairy, too large, too  **gorilla** to be his body. Luther couldn’t look at himself in the mirror anymore and at first when Father decided to send Luther to the moon as an important mission, he was relieved no one would see him. He’d always been intrigued by space, maybe he would enjoy it. But then days turned to weeks turned to months turned to years. Luther had never been so lonely and for the first time in his life, he wished he hadn’t been adopted; though he’d never admit it.

He only came back to Earth at twenty-nine when Father died. Then Five came back and everything fell apart after that. Tension was high all week, starting with Luther tactlessly accusing his siblings of murdering their father. He had been wrong about his siblings being involved, but Mom had been involved and the argument that broke out from the discovery was full of anger. He and Allison voted to turn Mom off while Diego, Klaus and Vanya voted not to.

“Really Vanya?” Luther had scoffed at his sister. “You’re going to make that choice?”

“Back off, big boy.” Diego growled.

“Look, we still need Five’s input.” Vanya said meekly. “Let’s just wait to do anything until Five votes.”

Luther huffed and stomped away. Allison gave Luther a disappointed look for how he talked to Vanya but he ignored it. Vanya shouldn’t have even been apart of the discussion, she’s ordinary, Mom’s first aid was meant for them. It’s not like an ordinary person was at risk of getting seriously injured. Later that night the house was attacked by assassins in cartoon animal masks. Luther protected Vanya and the rest of his family. Having his body exposed to his family was humiliating and he had shamefully hid in his room until the next morning.

Luther had been lonely on the moon, but spending the day looking for Five with Diego made him almost wish he had stayed. Diego and Luther had always but heads. Luther knew Diego was jealous that he wasn’t number one and Luther wasn’t above reminding his brother who was in charge. When they found their younger(older?) brother, Five was drunk as a skunk in the library clutching a department store mannequin. 

“Shit.” Diego muttered.

The night ended horribly. Luther got thrown up on, Diego ran off to help his friend rescue Klaus and Luther stayed to make sure Five didn’t choke in his sleep. In the morning Five pulled the rug out from under Luther by announcing the end of the world was in a matter of days. Five had worked for an organization of time traveling assassins before he came home and now had said organization on his tail.

For Luther things only got worse from there. He found out Dad sent him to the moon for nothing, failed to get Klaus to summon dad and went on a bender. The next day it was revealed that dad had killed himself to get the academy back together. Finding Allison, the sibling he’d always been closest to, near death had easily been the worst part though. So when Vanya was discovered to be the one who hurt Allison, Luther didn’t hesitate. He choked out his smallest sister and locked her in the basement. He ignored all of his siblings as they argued for their sister’s release, but they soon found out not even the cage could hold her. She destroyed the Umbrella Academy in a fit of rage and left for work like it was nothing.

Realizing his tiny sister was the cause of the apocalypse had been hard to swallow, admitting he was wrong was even harder but Five managed to save them all by taking them back to the beginning of the week. They helped Vanya with her new powers, avoiding Harold Jenkins and getting off her medicine and slowly started to come together as a family. Once Vanya had started to really grasp control, Luther began to plan on what to do with his life. For the first time ever he wasn’t needed. The apocalypse had been prevented and Dad was dead. He had no one to take orders from anymore and even if he did give orders his siblings wouldn’t listen.

“So what are you going to do now?” Allison asks.

Vanya was managing now, everyone was starting to slowly go back to their old lives, expect Klaus, who was trying to stay sober, and Five who had lived in an apocalyptic wasteland most of his life. 

“I’m gonna take a trip, get away for awhile.” Luther says.

“Oh yeah? Where are you going?” Allison asks with a smile.

“To see what I’ve been missing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't like Luther and find writing Luther centric stuff hard to write so it kinda sucks. Sorry


	2. Diego

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanna start this off by thanking everyone who has gave kudos and commented. All the comments have been so sweet. I hope you enjoy this chapter and the rest of this story.  
> TRIGGER WARNING: talk of suicidal thoughts  
> If that's a problem for you just scroll past it, it's not a major part of this chapter.  
> EDIT: I did a little retouching on 7/16/19

On October 1st, 1989, Maria Garcia went into labor in her kitchen. She hadn’t been pregnant when the day began, at forty-two she didn’t think herself even able to be pregnant, at least not safely. Her screams caught her youngest daughter’s attention and she went for help. It was too late for Maria to get to a hospital by the time help arrived and Maria gave birth on her kitchen floor. Maria and her baby boy were driven to the hospital by a neighbor, her daughter stayed at home to clean up and sent one of her sons to get her husband from work. Maria’s mind was racing as she held her baby, he was so beautiful, so small. She already had six children, she had never planned to have a seventh and simply didn’t have the funds.

She and her husband were already saving every penny and working hard to support the children they had. But as she looked at her new son, she didn’t want to let him go. She already loved him from the second she laid eyes on him and he needed her. He needed her, needed her to protect him and care for him. She didn’t need the nurses help, she already knew how to care for her son. By the time her husband, Carlos, made it to the hospital, Maria was determined to find a way to keep him.

“How did this happen? You weren’t pregnant this morning!” Carlos had been flabbergasted at the sudden birth.

“I don’t know. Maybe he’s a gift from God.” Maria had simply said, rocking the new baby.

“Maria, we can’t keep him.” Carlos’ voice had been soft but Maria knew her husband had made up his mind.

“I cannot abandon my son, Carlos.” She huffed, holding the baby closer to her chest.

“We can barely afford the kids we already have. It wouldn’t be fair to him.” He tried to reason.

“We’ll make it work, like we always do.”

They went back and forth until the baby began to cry. She gave her husband a hard look and focused on nursing her new son. Maria had always valued her family above all else. If she could afford to, she would have been a stay at home mother. She would have loved to spend all day with her children, but it wasn’t possible. 

Maria left the hospital that day with her son, but she and Carlos were still arguing over if they were keeping the baby. Maria couldn’t imagine giving away any of her children, but Carlos was insistent that they couldn’t afford another mouth to feed and it wasn’t fair for the child. Maria had named the baby Gabriel and introduced her children to their new baby brother. Her oldest children had tried to way in on their parents argument, but Maria shut that down quickly. Three days after Gabriel was born a man named Reginald Hargreeves came to their home.

Maria immediately didn’t like him but he offered lots of money for Gabriel, money she and Carlos desperately needed. Carlos insisted they talk about it and the arguing went to a whole new level.

“Be reasonable! We need this!” He cried.

“He’s my baby! He needs me!” She argued back.

“He is a rich man, he will take good care of Gabriel!”

The fighting seemed to never end, but then in a moment of weakness, she gave in. Carlos insisted she sign away her parental rights and the adoption papers right away so she couldn’t change her mind. Reginald signed next, changing her baby’s name from “Gabriel Carlos Garcia” to “Number Two Gabriel Hargreeves”. She felt sick when she saw it but Carlos signed the papers. Maria began to cry the second Carlos took Gabriel from her arms. Her cries turned to sobs when her husband handed over the baby to Reginald who passed her son on to a nanny and gave her husband a large check. She screamed when they left, her husband and oldest children having to hold onto her so she wouldn’t run after them.

“My baby! My baby!” She cried over and over again.

How could she be so weak? How could she be so stupid? Her son, her little Gabriel with his chubby cheeks and big beautiful eyes was gone now. Her relationship with Carlos became strained after that. Maria insisted for almost two months that Carlos slept on the couch. It took years for their marriage to get where it had been before Gabriel’s birth, but Maria never forgot about her son.

Number Two was a fussy baby, especially when he was first adopted. The child cried for two days straight before he began to settle. Number Two had been the last to roll over, the second to stand and the first to start teething. His powers didn’t show until he was one and was left in the bath unsupervised for a minute. Nanny Esmerelda came back to find Number Two under water, not breathing. She screamed and the other nannies rushed in, one nanny getting Reginald. They got him out of the bath only to find he was alive, just holding his breath. He had been for two minutes straight. As a toddler, it became clear this was only his first ability as anything he threw would go exactly where he wanted it to.

Number Two preferred to play with Number Four, who liked to make a mess. He also liked Number Six, but he wasn’t as close to Six who was quieter but more imaginative. All three of them had almost been drenched in paint the first and last time the nannies let them finger paint. Number Two’s favorite nanny, Nanny Esmerelda, would sometimes let the boys get into markers when the other nannies restricted them to crayons. Nanny Esmerelda would talk to the children in Spanish and play the more creative games with them. She was fired when Grace was made.

Number Two was four when Mom came into their lives and Number Two quickly became attached. Number One and Father were very mean about his stutter but Mom always made him feel better. She praised him when he would push himself to say harder words and told him he was a brave boy. When she started serving foods they would usually not have at lunch, Number Two gave a harsh look to anyone who made faces or whined about it. If Mom made it, they were going to eat it and like it!

When Number One asked about the food, Number Two had been stunned. Number Five’s announcement that he was learning Turkish and Hebrew, after his home country, made Number Two realize he wanted to learn about his home country too.

“M-m-mom?” Number Two asked that afternoon.

“Yes, dear?” She replied, looking up from her knitting.

“W-w-whe-where am I-I-I fr-from?” He questions.

“Chiapas, Mexico, sweetie.” She chirps.

Number Two blinked in awe. He knew he wasn’t from Canada, but to hear where he was really from felt amazing. Up until now Number Two had never had any kind of identity or connection to the outside world but now he had one. “C-can y-y-y-you te-teach me Sp-Spanish?”

“Of course, dear!”

After that, she began to teach him Spanish and about Mexico. Number Two worked harder at learning Spanish then any of the lessons Pogo taught him. He was determined to learn it and he found that his stutter wasn’t as bad when he was speaking Spanish. As he got older he got more fluent and Number Four whined until Mom started teaching him Spanish too so he could talk to Number Two in Spanish; it annoyed the hell out of Number One. He learned more about Mexican culture, history and traditions. He learned about the natives who had inhabited Mexico and the brutal conquers who stopped at nothing to steal the land. He learned about the importance of family in Mexican culture and how things were different from Canada and Mexico. He learned about the holidays and traditions he’d never even heard of before.

When he was eight, Mom helped him celebrate The Day of The Dead. He couldn’t celebrate properly because he didn’t have pictures of his ancestors but Mom helped him make offerings and decorate so his ancestors might be able to find the offerings. Dad had been furious and forbid Mom and Number Two to celebrate again. Mom held his hand when he cried about it but Number Two never brought it up again.

When they were nine, Dad announced that they would get names. Number Two had been so excited. Names! They would get real names! When Mom came into his room Number Two was twitching with excitement.

“Is it t-t-t-time? Are y-y-you going t-to n-name me?” He asks the second she’s in the room.

“Yes my dear, it’s finally your turn.” Mom says as if Diego isn’t the second person being named. “From now on you are Diego Gabriel Hargreeves.” 

Diego couldn’t help the smile that slowly overtook his face. “I even g-g-g-get a m-m-middle name?”

“Yes you do. Your birth mother gave it to you.” Grace tells Diego as she reaches out to cup his cheek.

Diego’s stomach clenched at the mention of his birth mom. He knew next to nothing about the woman. Sometimes he resented her for giving him away and other times he was glad she did. He didn’t know how to feel about her, but as Mom stroked his cheek Diego knew he was happy to have the mom he has.

When the Umbrella Academy was revealed to the world, Diego wished they hadn’t been. The attention and pressure was daunting. Father put more pressure on them than ever and training was harder than it’s ever been. They were all finding a way to cope, Allison by throwing herself into day dreams and soaking up the attention like a sponge. Five turned to his religion as a way to cope, along with continuing her pursuit of learning everything he possibly could, which pissed off their father to no end. Klaus turned to drugs, Ben turned to books and his two favorite siblings, Five and Vanya. Diego coped by pushing himself to his limits. He threw himself into training, wanting to show his father that he was a better leader than Luther and if anyone deserved to be Number One it was him. It didn’t work though.

He continued to learn Spanish and more about his culture. Mom was Diego’s confidant, she ways to keep secrets so she could keep Diego’s trust. He learned a lot from her, she seemed to know everything, even things about his birth family. He didn’t realize just how much until he had an allergic reaction to kiwi and Mom had taken him to the infirmary. Reginald had scoffed as Diego’s face puffed up but Mom took him away and fixed him up.

“I d-d-didn’t even k-know I was al-al-allergic, he can’t be m-mad at m-m-me for this.” Diego huffed, crossing his arms over his chest and pouting.

“Of course darling, it’s not your fault. It’s genetic, your mother and two of your sisters are allergic to Kiwi too.” Grace said as she smiled at her son.

Diego stiffened. “What? How d-d-do you know t-t-t-t-that?”

“Your father has all relevant information about your birth family downloaded into my database, silly.” Grace chirps and ruffles Diego’s hair.

Diego was dumbfounded. He knew Mom knew some stuff about their birth families but not “all relevant information”. What did that even mean?

“Like w-what?” He asks, reaching for his knives and begins fiddling with one.

Grace smiled and cups Diego’s face. She knows all her son’s tics, so she recognized Diego playing with his knife as something he didn when nervous. “I know a lot. Where your birth family lives, works, their medical records, their marital status, all legal information, if they try to contact you. I know it all.”

“Have t-t-they tried to con-contact me?” Diego asked in a small voice, the hope and apprehension written all over his face.

Diego still hadn’t sorted out all his feelings towards his birth family even after all this time. Why did they give him up? Did they not love him? Was he not good enough? He would probably never know the answer.

Grace sighed. “Yes dear, your birth mother has.”

Diego blinks in shock. He knew there was a chance they could, but he didn’t think they would. “H-h-how?”

“She writes you letters.” Grace admits, still cupping his cheek, now rubbing circles with her thumb.

“C-can I s-see t-t-t-them?” Diego asks hopefully.

“I’m sorry dear, but I’m not allowed to give them to you.”

Diego’s face dropped and so did the conversation. He nods solemnly and left the infirmary. He tried to put this new knowledge behind him and focused on his training and studies. He worked on his stutter, his spanish and proving to dad he would be a better Number One. He shut out everyone except for Mom, much to the annoyance of Klaus and Ben, determined to prove to everyone that he’s the one that should be leader, that he’s important, that his birth family was wrong to give him away.

Then Five disappeared. 

At first Diego didn’t really care, he was never close to his teleporting brother, but after a couple hours and Father refusing to let them search, Diego began to feel uneasy. Five is egotistical, rude and stubborn but it isn’t like him to just disappear like that and certainly not alone. While Diego might not have been close to his brother, Vany and Five stuck to each other like glue. Five wouldn’t have left without her.

Diego couldn’t help but notice Vanya’s fear grow throughout the day. Before bed he caught Ben trying to soothe her. Ben fit in with Vanya and Five but he also was pretty close to Klaus, so it didn’t surprise Diego that Ben was the one trying to calm her.

“Don’t worry, V. He’ll be back. He wouldn’t leave without us.” Ben had whispered to the smallest of their siblings.

“It’s been hours Ben. What if something happened to him?” Vanya had whimpered.

“It’s Five, he can protect himself. I’m sure he’s fine.” Ben tried to soothe her.

“But…” Vanya trailed off, her bottom lip wobbling.

“If he’s not back by morning Dad will have to let us look for him.” Ben said confidently.

Vanya gave a jerky nod and Ben gave her arm a light squeeze. Diego frowned at the scene in front of him. Vanya was the ordinary one, small, helpless and often ignored. He couldn’t help but feel the need to protect her and originally the best way to protect her was to leave her alone. Dad was making him use Mom, Klaus and Ben in his target practice as he was so close to Mom and closest to Klaus and Ben out of his siblings. He had nicked Klaus and Mom a few times, Mom wasn’t able to feel the pain but it had made Diego so distraught, Klaus, Ben and Mom knew how to fight, they could protect themselves and all but Ben had been hurt. If Dad saw Diego’s care for Vanya, he would use it against Diego. The only reason Ben wasn’t hurt when being used for target practice was because The Horror prevented the knives from hurting him, but Klaus had been hurt and he had training. Vanya had no training, she couldn’t defend herself and if Dad punished Diego by making Vanya be apart of target practice, there was no telling how badly she could get hurt.

Diego felt bad for his sister. Five had always been the most ballsy and openly defiant to their Dad, but also Vanya’s protector and best friend. Diego had seen Five take care of and stand up for Vanya more times then he could possibly count. Diego couldn’t imagine if Mom, his protector and best friend, disappeared. His heart went out to Vanya but he had been sure that Five would show up overnight and it would all blow over.

However, when Diego woke the next morning, Five was still gone and Vanya was panicking. At breakfast Diego noticed his sister didn’t touch her food, not even pretending to eat the oatmeal. Her eyes kept darting all over the room and her expression hid nothing. Diego shared a look with Ben and the two of them silently agreed something had to be done. After breakfast Ben and Diego met in one of the less frequented hallways.

“Five still isn’t back yet. Vanya and I are worried about him. We’ve gotta start looking for him.” Ben blurts out.

“I k-know. We’ll h-h-have to ask D-Dad.” Diego had said.

They agreed to gather their siblings and ask Dad when they could start looking for Number Five. Ben went to collect Klaus and Vanya and Diego agreed to bring it up to Allison so she could convince Luther. After morning training they all went to Dad’s office, but he forbid them to enter so the six of them huddled awkwardly at the doorway.

“Father, when are we going to search for Five?” Luther asked.

Even though Diego and Luther butheads like crazy, he reluctantly agreed to let Luther bring it up to Dad. As Ben had pointed out, Luther is Dad’s favorite and things will go better if they let Luther play up his “team leader” position.

“You won’t. The Umbrella Academy has more important missions to deal with then searching for an insolent brat. Number Five will come back on his own.” Dad had said, not bothering to look up from his notebook.

Vanya sucked in a harsh breath and Diego saw Ben wrap an arm around her shoulders. Diego took a step forward, anger rushing through his veins. He knew his father was harsh, a real prick, but Five is their family, Dad’s son. How could Dad not care?

“W-w-w-what if h-he doesn’t c-come back?” Diego demanded.

Sir Reginald Hargreeves finally looked up from his notebook, giving Diego a dirty look. “Speak clearly Number Two!”

Diego flinched but opened his mouth to repeat himself, only for Klaus to beat him to the punch. “He asked ‘what if Five doesn’t come back?’ You’re not just going to let our brother rot out there are you?!”

“Mind your tongue, Number Four!”

Klaus huffed and stormed away. Over his shoulder he yelled that if Dad wasn’t going to look for Five “fine” but not to expect Klaus to do the same. Diego couldn’t help the little smirk that grew on his face. The rest of the kids scurried away from Dad’s office before they could get yelled at, Luther and Allison going back to their studies and the rest of them going after Klaus.

They broke up into groups of two, Diego with Vanya and Ben with Klaus, and searched the grounds and around the block. At first Diego didn’t say anything but after an hour of searching with no avail, Vanya started sniffling and rubbing at her eyes to wipe away tears.

“E-e-everything is g-gonna be okay, V-Vanya. We’ll f-find him.” Diego said softly, putting a hand gently on Vanya’s arm.

“But what if we don’t? What if he’s hurt or lost or dead?” Vanya breathed, looking at Diego with glassy eyes.

Diego didn’t know what to say to that, so he gave her arm a gentle squeeze. “We’re g-gonna find him. I p-promise. No m-matter h-h-how long it takes.”

She gave him a soft smile and they went back to looking. When they had searched all of the grounds and still found nothing, Vanya didn’t fight her sobs. Ben and Klaus had already gone to start searching the block so they were alone in the courtyard.

“I can’t lose him. Five’s my best friend. Without him I’ll be all alone.” She whimpered.

Diego frowned. “No you w-won’t. Ben’s h-here.” He pointed out.

“He’ll forget about me. Ben cares but he doesn’t put in effort to see me like Five does.” Vanya argued.

“M-maybe you two will get c-c-closer.” Diego offered but Vanya shook her head.

“I doubt it. I’m not special enough, I’m not special at all.”

“That’s not t-true, just because you don’t h-h-have powers doesn’t mean you aren’t s-s-sp-special, Vanya!”

“You don’t have to lie, Diego. I know I’m nothing but ordinary. You barely ever spoke to me before this, you don’t need to play nice.”

Diego cringed. He had hoped Vanya would somehow understand why he distanced himself, but he had known this was coming. “I’m not l-lying and I’m not p-playing nice. You are s-sp-special.”

He takes her hand and looks her in the eyes so she knows he is serious. It takes a minute but Vanya’s face relaxes and she believes him. She wipes the tears and snot off her face with her arm and smiles at him. “Thank you Diego.”

And with that they went back to searching for their brother. They meet up with Ben and Klaus and the four of them search together. They finally stop their search just before dinner time and go home. Ben and Vanya are both teary eyed and almost clinging to each other as they walk home. Diego walks behind them, next to Klaus.

“If he doesn’t show up it’ll kill them.” Klaus says to Diego.

Diego huffs. “H-he’ll show. He h-has to.”

“Of Diego, my sweet baby brother-

“We’re the s-s-same age, Klaus!”

“-Five doesn’t have to do anything. He got out of this hell hole, maybe he’s just being smart and not giving dear old dad a chance to drag him into Dad’s evil clutches.”

“He w-wouldn’t run a-a-away without them.” Diego argued.

“Maybe, maybe not.” Klaus shrugs. “But it’s nicer to think he’s just free.”

Diego nodded. Klaus was right, it’s nicer to think Five just ran away, is free from Dad’s reign of terror.

“Do you s-s-see him?” Diego asks softly.

“No, thank fuck.” Klaus answers with a chuckle. “And if anyone was gonna haunt me, it would be Five’s snobby ass. He’s alive, wherever he is.”

Diego lets the topic drop and they continue their walk home. Pogo got to them the second they entered the front door. 

“Come along children, your father is waiting.”

Diego sees Ben and Vanya stand even closer together, holding each other’s hands tightly and Klaus trying to hide his fear so Diego follows Klaus’ lead and raises his chin. He holds his head up high as he marches to Reginald’s office. Diego goes into the office after Pogo, leading his siblings in. Reginald’s face was red with anger, not much of a surprise to Diego, but he still felt himself grow more apprehensive. Pogo waited till all four children were in the office and closed the door.

“What the hell is wrong with you imbeciles?” Sir Reginald demanded.

“What?” Klaus questioned, scrunching his nose up.

“I told all of you that you were not permitted to search for Number Five! You not only disobeyed me but left the grounds without permission!”

“We had to look for him, Dad.” Vanya said meekly. 

“You insolent whelps! You do not disobey me!” Reginald screamed, glaring at the children in front of him.

Ben flinched back and tried to push Vanya behind him, but she didn’t budge. Vanya’s facial expression wasn’t angry, just frustrated. 

“We only wanted to find Five. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

Before Diego could back Vanya up, Dad’s hand reeled back and slapped her hard across the face. Vanya went backwards into one of dad’s trinkets, causing her to whimper in additional pain.

“Vanya!” All three boys cried, jumping forward to get to her.

Diego heard Pogo inhale sharply but the chimpanzee did nothing to protect or defend the children. When Dad realized that Vanya had fallen into one of his prized trinkets, he stormed closer to her as all three boys scrambled to try to get in front of her. Reginald only pushed them back so he could stare Vanya down. 

“You worthless girl! You are nothing but an ordinary, good for nothing, talentless child! You should count yourself lucky I let you stay here!”

“Don’t talk to her like that!” Ben snapped.

Diego could see tentacles rustling under Ben’s shirt and he couldn’t help but smirk. Maybe justice would be served, maybe Ben would let the horror hurt Dad the way he’d hurt them their whole lives. 

“Don’t bother Number Six. You won’t get the chance to protect this useless waste of space.” Reginald sniffed snootily, raising his chin arrogantly. 

Ben bared his teeth and the horror was about to come out of Ben’s abdomen when Pogo stuck a syringe into Ben’s neck. Diego recognized the syringe and cringed. It was full of fast acting tranquilizer that both Luther and Diego were given to carry during missions in case Ben lost control near civilians. Ben dropped like a sack of potatoes and Klaus reached for him.

“Shit! Ben!” Klaus gasped, grabbing his brother before Ben hit the ground.

“Pogo, take them away. These pathetic excuse for children need to be punished.” Dad commanded.

At that, Klaus and Diego tried to fight back, but Pogo hit Klaus in the back of the neck and Klaus dropped to the ground, Ben still in his arms. Diego reached for a knife and tried to fight, but Pogo must have been able to hit him too because one second he remembers standing in front of Vanya protectively and the next he was in his tank.

The tank was used for personalized training and punishment for Diego. He was handcuffed around his arms, legs and chains connecting them and he was chained to the bottom of the tank. When he realized where he was, he screamed and tried helplessly to get out of his chains. Diego had no idea how long he was kept in the tank, but eventually he was released. He was starving, dehydrated, freezing and exhausted. Mom wrapped towels around Diego quickly and hugged him. Diego leaned eagerly into his mother’s hold, shivering wildly.

“Oh Diego, my sweet boy. Let's get you warm and fed.”

Mom made him change into his winter pajamas before taking him to the kitchen and feeding him hot soup and lots of water. For the next two days Diego was kept in his room as a part of his punishment but the day he was let out, he found himself searching for Vanya. He found her in her shoebox of a room. She had a nasty yellowish, fading bruise on her face and a blank look on her face.

“Jesus Vanya, a-are you o-okay?” Diego asks, going forward to get a better look at her face.

Vanya shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Diego frowned and sat down on her bed next to her. “W-w-what do you m-mean?”

“I don’t feel anything. I’m numb.”

Diego nods slowly. “I’m h-here for you Vanya.”

The next couple days Diego stayed as close to Vanya as he could. With Five gone, Diego took over the roll of Vanya’s protector. This wasn’t the only thing that had changed though, Ben and Klaus we’re now closer to Vanya too. While Klaus and Diego has always been pretty close, they seemed to have more of an understanding now. They were both looking out for a sibling, Diego was Vanya’s protector and Klaus was Ben’s.

After Five’s disappearance the distance between Luther and the lower numbers only grew. While Allison had felt bad about what happened and tried to explain that to Diego, Luther stood obediently at Dad’s side like the loyal attack dog he is. This did nothing to endear him to his siblings who were grasping for a sense of closure and comfort with the disappearance of their brother. Five of the six remaining siblings began to look outside their current lives for a reason to keep going, for motivation and for the future.

For Diego, he wanted to be a police officer. He was good at catching the bad guys and wanted to help people, just not under Reginald’s thumb. He kept a box under his bed full of pamphlets for the police academy and programs on criminal justice. He also had pamphlets for colleges that specialized in music for Vanya, pamphlets on rehab programs and design school for Klaus and colleges that had great teaching programs for Ben. 

He kept up his role of protector as they all grew. He would help his siblings the best he could. He helped Vanya make snacks for Five and leave them out for him, he stayed up all night when Klaus came home so drunk Diego worried he’d choke on his vomit in his sleep and read books he didn’t care for to connect with Ben. He saw more of Klaus protecting Ben after he became aware of it. He noticed that Klaus would be extra irritating to Dad when Dad was pushing Ben too hard so the focus would be off Ben, he noticed Klaus break things to distract Dad when Ben was having a bad day. None of their family, besides Ben and maybe Vanya, seemed to notice that Klaus was acting this way to protect Ben instead of just being a menace.

As Diego had feared, Dad used his closeness with Vanya against him and forced his defenseless sister to be involved in target practice. Reginald loudly disapproved of anyone caring for Vanya, But Mom has been thrilled. She didn’t say much about it until they were fourteen.

“I’m so glad you two have each other.” Mom said after a particularly bad day at target practice where Pogo had been ordered to distract him while he threw knives. Vanya’s ear got nicked and Diego almost threw up.

“I h-hurt her, Mom.” Diego whimpered. He felt so young, stupid and helpless. He hates this feeling. “I didn’t w-w-want to hurt her!”

“I know you didn’t dear. But you’re both so much happier now.” Grace said soothingly, stroking her son’s hair as Diego laid on his bed.

“I guess.” Diego Agreed halfheartedly.

“Vanya smiles so much now and you laugh more than ever. I was so worried you two were both so isolated, but you have each other now. I know you’ll take care of each other.”

“Of course. S-she’s my s-sister.”

Diego wanted to say that they always had each other, but that wasn’t really true. Up until Five’s disappearance Vanya thought Diego hated her. They had barely spoken back then and now they talk all the time, share silent jokes across the dinner table, help each other when the other is upset and care for each other. 

“I’m so proud of you, my boy.” Grace beamed, kissing Diego’s forehead like he was still a toddler.

“I love you, M-mom.”

“I love you too, dear.”

She left the room, leaving Diego feeling lighter. It still sucked that Dad used his closeness with Vanya against them and Vanya got hurt, but Mom was right: they are both happier now.

Then Ben dies on a mission. They’re only seventeen and everyone is crushed, except Dad. Diego’s blood boils the whole week after Ben’s death. When it happened Klaus had been hysterical, he wouldn’t stop screaming and tried ripping out chunks of his hair. Mom had to sedate him and Klaus was kept in the infirmary for the next two days. Mom was sad, Diego could tell. She would stand in Ben’s room and look around with the emptiest expression he’d ever seen from her. Pogo had thrown up when they brought Ben’s remains back. Allison had sobbed loudly and seeked out Luther for comfort. Luther was just lost, he was stuck between being up to his eyeballs in guilt and trying to hide his sadness so Dad wouldn’t think he’s weak. Diego himself was furious, ready to lash out at Dad at any moment. It was Dad’s fault Ben died, Ben had never wanted to go on the stupid mission and for months he’d been worried about The Horror, saying he had less control over them. But Dad made Ben go anyway and the monsters under his skin tore Ben apart. Dad didn’t even seem sad.

However, the one Diego was most concerned about was Vanya. She was taking too much of her medication and refusing to talk to anyone, even Diego. She locked herself in her room for almost two days before Diego broke in and refused to leave until she did.

“Just go, please.” She whispered.

Her hair was greasy and tangled, she was wearing dirty clothes and her skin looked sticky from tears and lack of wash. She hadn’t eaten since she locked herself in here, refusing to let Mom feed her.

“Not until you do. We just lost Ben, I can’t lose you too, V.” Diego told her.

At seventeen, Diego had a better control over his stutter than he’d ever had, it rarely was apparent in his speech anymore.

“It should have been me that died, not Ben.”

“Vanya that’s not true.”

“Yes it is! He mattered more! He deserves to be alive more than I do!”

“You matter, Vanya! You matter to me! Ben didn’t deserve to d-die but neither do you! You should b-both be alive!”

“But we’re not. Only me.”

Diego took his sister’s clammy hand. “And it’s staying that way.”

True to his word, Diego didn’t leave his sister’s room until the next day when she finally allowed Diego to help her to the kitchen to eat. Vanya’s dark thoughts had scared Diego but he refused to let her deal with them alone. 

The public funeral happen first. Diego didn’t want to go. He didn’t want to be subjected to the press and fans when he’s grieving and he didn’t want to leave Mom and Vanya back at the house, unable to come to the funeral. Diego’s protests were ignored by Dad and Pogo. He was forced into a suit by Mom and dragged off to the circus that was Ben’s public funeral. It took place at the largest church in the town and it was filled to the brim with fans, press and people they had saved. None of the children were permitted by their father to speak at the funeral. Luther didn’t argue, Allison and Diego were furious with their father’s decision and Klaus was too high to argue. Dad spoke at Ben’s public funeral, but Diego didn’t listen. Afterwards lots of people spoke to Dad and them, but one person caught Diego’s eye. A petite Asian woman went to approach them only for Dad to have security take her away. Diego swore he heard her say “you killed my son” in heavily accented English.

After the public funeral was the private one in the courtyard. Diego honestly didn’t really remember it, it was a blur of anger, crippling despair and frustration. He knew he’d yelled at Dad and Vanya had dropped an uncomfortable truth in everyone’s lap. He was proud of her for it.

A week later, Klaus disappeared in the middle of the night with many of Dad’s expensive knick knacks. Dad had raged about it, demanding they look for Klaus and bring him back. Diego found Klaus in a homeless shelter.

“Please D, don’t make me go back.” Klaus had begged. “I can’t go back there! It’s hell!”

Diego nodded solemnly. “I won’t tell anyone I found you. I’m leaving once I’m eight-teen, I’ll look for you then. Until then, stay safe.”

The ten months leading up to their 18th birthday had been the worst of Diego’s life. The house felt so empty yet so stifling all at once. Luther and Dad were being more bossy and controlling then they’d ever been. In many ways, it reminded Diego of when Five went missing because their training went up and their Dad attempted to keep his attack dogs leashed even more than before. Diego and Vanya talked a lot about their dreams for the future. Diego applied for the police academy a month before their 18th birthday and got in. Vanya applied for colleges and jobs. She had been accepted into an arts college for the spring semester and began looking more seriously for jobs. She didn’t think she could stay any longer than necessary. 

The night before their birthday, Diego packed his bags. Vanya knew he’d be leaving in the morning for the police academy and they promised to stay in touch. The morning of, Diego woke up and went to breakfast with the remaining children. Diego finished eating first and decided now was a good time to break the news to Mom, Pogo, Luther and Allison. Dad wasn’t at breakfast but Diego was sure one of them would tell Dad soon enough.

“I’m leaving.” He announced.

“What?” Luther gaped.

“I said I’m leaving. I’m an adult now, it’s time for me to move on.” 

And with that, Diego quickly left the dining room and grabbed his bags. He half ran out the door so Luther didn’t try to attack him and Dad didn’t have time to berate him. At first Diego stayed in a homeless shelter at nights while he studied at the police academy during the day. He looked for Klaus when he first left the academy but was unable to find him. It made Diego’s gut twist in fear. He looked for months before he heard rumors of Klaus leaving the city. Diego hoped it was true and his brother was safe. Diego started working at a boxing gym at night, doing fights for cash and mopping the floors, getting to sleep in the boiler room. 

A month after their eighteenth birthday Vanya finally left the academy. She’d been working in secret for a month at a cafe, she finally saved up enough money to make a down payment on a shoebox apartment in a shitty area. It was pretty awful, but Vanya was happy to be out so Diego was happy for her. The police academy had been hard on Diego, it had been hard to take orders, his issues with authority made things difficult dealing with his superiors. The best part of it all was Eudora. Eudora patch was another student at the police academy and the two of them just clicked. Within a week of meeting each other, Diego asked her out for coffee. It didn’t take long for them to become a serious couple. 

She made him want to try harder. For the first time in his entire life Diego had someone besides his siblings who believed in him. 

“You have to stop taking the bait, Diego.” Eudora sighed one day. 

He’d gotten in a fight with another cadet. The cadet, Carson, had been making jokes about Diego’s days in the Umbrella Academy since day one. This wasn’t the first time the two had fought.

“I can’t just let him talk about me and my family like that, Dora.” Diego defended.

“I’m not saying it’s okay! I just don’t want you to get thrown out. You’ve been in so many fights already and you’re working so hard for this… I just want things to go well for you.”

“I know. It’s just so hard.” 

Diego had never been taught to turn away from a fight, so trying to ignore when someone provoked him was a hard task. For eighteen years if someone provoked Diego he’d go to blows with them, it was what he knew and unlearning it was proving to be near impossible for Diego. 

“I know it is, D. But you’ve got this.” Eudora kissed his cheek and he smiles.

The happiness didn’t last though. Diego continued to struggle to unlearn his behavior and eventually, he was kicked out of the police academy. The fight it resulted in had been awful, with Diego and Eudora screaming at each other for hours. It took almost a week, but they apologized to each other and made up. 

Eudora graduated from the academy and began working for the police department while Diego continued to work at the gym, fighting, training and cleaning, but at night Diego would go out and fight. He’d stop crime in ways the police only wished they could. He stopped purse snatchers, kidnappers, drug dealers, robbers and an attempted murderer in only two months on the streets. It wasn’t without its risks though. He’d gotten hurt a lot, he had new scars and bruises on his body to it. This only added to the problems in his relationship with Eudora.

“Jesus Christ Diego! You’re gonna end up getting yourself killed!”

“I know what I’m doing!”

“Then how come you have a bruise that takes up half your torso? If that’s knowing what you’re doing, I’d hate to see what being unprepared looks like!”

“Oh fuck off! I’m protecting people, doing a good thing, so what if I get hurt?”

Eudora scoffed. “You’re playing hero! Running around in a mask at night like a comic book character. Life isn’t a comic book Diego, people who run around playing hero are vigilantes, which is illegal, and they get hurt, even killed.”

After a month of fighting over Diego’s night habits, they broke up. Eudora’s final words on the matter were “I just hope I don’t see you in the morgue.''

When Vanya finished college with a degree in music, the two siblings had a celebration like no other. Out of all the Hargreeves siblings she was the only one who went to college and Diego was so proud of her. It had been hard being away from his closest sibling, trying to talk her through her nerves over the phone but it had all paid out in the end.

“You did it, V! I’m so proud of you!”

“I can’t believe I did it.” Vanya admitted breathlessly, staring at her degree in disbelief.

“I knew you’d be able to. You worked hard for this, be proud of yourself.” Diego told his sister.

After she graduated, Vanya auditioned for the third chair in the orchestra in their hometown and got it. It wasn’t a great salary so she took up teaching kids to play the violin to help pay her bills. She stayed at Diego’s place till she saved up enough for a down payment for an apartment. Only two weeks after Diego helped his sister move in, he came stumbling through her window with a large gash on the side of his head.

“What the-Diego?!”

“V-Vanya.” He croaked before losing consciousness. 

He woke up in a hospital bed, the side of his head felt tight and his body ached. The second his eyes fluttered open he noticed Vanya was sitting at his bedside, asleep in an uncomfortable looking hospital chair.

“I said I didn’t want to see you in the morgue but this isn’t much better.” A familiar voice stated.

Diego turned to see Eudora. She was in sweats and looked exhausted.

“What are you doing here?” He asked, his voice gruff.

He winced at how dry his throat was and reached for the cup of water that sat on his bedside. It was probably Vanya’s but he doubted she’d mind sharing. Seeing Eudora here was tough. He had tried dating after their relationship fell apart but nothing stuck. Only one of the dozens of relationships he tried after Eudora could count as serious and it hadn’t meant nearly as much to Diego as his relationship with Eudora did.

“I was at the precinct when the 9-1-1 call came in. You scared the shit out of your sister.” Eudora says.

“If you’re here to interrogate me you can go. I’m not saying shit.” Diego huffed.

“I’m not here to interrogate you!” She exclaimed defensively. “Why do you always only see the worst in things?”

Vanya choose that moment to wake, moaning loudly as she opened her eyes. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing, don’t worry about it. You okay?” Diego asked, giving his sister his full attention.

Vanya snorts. “Me? Diego, you’re in the hospital with a huge gash on your head. You needed a ton of stitches. Are  **you** okay?”

Diego shrugs. “I’ll live.”

Vanya and Eudora groan at the same time. Diego was released from the hospital later in the day. He continued to shrug off his injury, much to Vanya’s annoyance. He had a boxing match before his stitches were even out and continued his late night work. He knew Vanya worried about him but he continued to reassure her that he’s fine and knows what he’s doing.

At twenty-four, Diego returned to the Umbrella Academy. He had made sure Luther and Dad were out of town for a mission before stalking into the hell he’d grown up in. 

“Master Diego, what a surprise.” Pogo had said.

Mom rushed forward and cupped Diego’s face. “Sweetheart! You look peckish, do you want lunch?”

He gave her a small smile. “No thanks Mom, I’m not hungry.”

“To what do we owe the pleasure?” Pogo questioned.

“I want the letters my birth mother sent to me.” 

Pogo had looked dumbstruck but after a minute he regained composure. “Of course Master Diego.”

Diego had gotten his letters, had lunch with Mom and went back to his home. That night he sat and read his letters, starting with the earliest ones. They had been sent before the academy had been unveiled. They were written in Spanish and stained with tears. His birth mother, Maria, wrote about her regret in giving him up, asked him questions about his life and told him about his birth family. As he read on, to the more recent letters, he saw Maria’s anger at Diego, apparently originally named Gabriel, being put in danger, her irritation at the lack of care about his well being from the public and then her heartbreak at Ben’s death.

He was stuck between happy and furious that she cared about him. She had never wanted to give him away. Diego had a family that had wanted him, loved him and cared for him. He had Vanya now but he would have always had them. After a month, Diego wrote back for the very first time. 

_ Dear Maria, _

_ Hello, this is your son Diego. I’m sorry I never wrote before, I only recently found your letters. I’d like to get in contact with you. _

_ Sincerely, _

_ Diego Hargreeves _

She’s written back immediately. She praised his Spanish and told him how happy she was to hear from him. She asked tons of questions: what did he do for a living? Was he happy? Did he have a girlfriend? What did he do for fun? How long had he been learning Spanish? What did he look like now? Was he close with any of his siblings?

Diego answered them all and asked about his birth family. Turns out, Diego had six biological siblings. Most of his siblings were farmers or factory workers, but his sister Sophia had been the first in the family to go to college and now worked as a banker. He could feel Maria’s pride and love. Diego had about twelve nieces and nephews, two sister-in-laws and four brother-in-laws and currently one of his sisters was pregnant with twins.

Slowly Diego became close with his birth mother. He learned everything about Maria and came to care for her. They shared stories and experiences, she talked about major things in her life like how at Sophia’s college graduation and how she had sobbed with pride. She told him about the depression she’d gone into after he’d been sold, she had considered coming all the way up to Canada to steal him back, how she had fallen in love with her husband and how their marriage struggled after he was sold. In return, he told his own stories. He told Maria about Five’s disappearance, about the pain that came with Ben’s death, late nights spent talking with Klaus and Ben, Vanya’s graduation and the day he left the academy. He may have not called her Mom, but there was still that love there. Everything was going great, until Maria had a stroke, then a second one shortly after. Maria said Carlos, her husband, had written the letter in her behalf telling him what happened.

A week later, Diego had flown out to Chiapas, Mexico. Vanya had wanted to go with him for moral support but he talked his sister out of it. He needed to do this alone. The town was impoverished, but full of life. His brothers and sisters were eager to meet him, as was Maria. His welcoming had been beyond what he’d expected. He was hugged, kissed and clapped on the back more times than he could count. The only person that didn’t seem to want Diego there was Carlos. He kept eyeing Diego, but didn’t have the nerve to say anything. His nieces and nephews had questions, they wanted to know everything. His sister Ester was the youngest before he came along and she made not so subtle hints that he should stay. Ester and Sophia had tried to introduce him to women in the neighborhood to try to sweeten the idea of staying. It felt good that they wanted him here, but he knew he couldn’t stay.

He only stayed for a week, but it had been fun.   
“I wish I had never let you go.” Maria breathed on the day of his departure.

“I’ll still write, don’t worry. You’ll see me again, I promise.”

A month later Maria had a fatal stroke. Diego flew out for the funeral and when he returned home, he drank himself to sleep. The month after Maria’s death had been hard but Diego had his friends and sister to help him get through it. Life went on. Diego still received letters from his brothers and sisters sometimes, but not very often. If he tried, he could almost forget he’d ever connected to his birth family at all.

The first time Diego saw Klaus in years was in an alley. Diego had heard a commotion and followed it to the alley. Klaus was being robbed as he lay unconscious on the ground. Diego scared the assholes off before taking his brother home. When Klaus woke, Diego hadn’t slept a wink, waiting anxiously for his brother to wake.

“Holy shit, Diego?”

“Hey Klaus, long time no see.”

“You can say that again.” Klaus said with a humorless laugh. 

The brothers spent the next few hours reconnecting. Diego avoided talking about how he found Klaus. He had hoped Klaus had gotten sober, his brother’s drug problem had been no secret when they were children but he knew he couldn’t bring it up now. Sure Klaus was being loud, animated and cheerful but he was changing the subject whenever Diego started to talk about a serious topic. He took the hint and finally gave into the need for a nap. He woke to find Klaus and fifty bucks gone.

When Reginald died, Diego had been ready to throw a party. Of course his family had thrown a fucking wrench in that. First Luther accused them all, but mostly him, of murdering Dad. Then, Five returns after being gone for fifteen years and acts like he wasn’t gone at all. Mom’s behavior had been worrying and Diego tried to help his mother. Okay, so maybe taking the monocle wasn’t his smartest idea but he wanted to protect his mother.  Luther found out that something was off with Mom and wanted to shut her off. Shoot outs had started happening all over town until eventually those assholes broke into his home and hurt his family. Vanya had a gash on her head and in a moment of anger and frustration, Diego called his favorite sister a liability. She bolted before he could apologize.

The week was a shitshow.  Eudora died and Diego could do nothing. She had done things his way like he asked and ended up dead. It didn’t matter what anyone said, he knew it was his fault. He swore vengeance and became so hyper focused on avenging Eudora, he ignored his family. Of course, that made things worse. Allison’s throat got slit, Luther locked Vanya in a fucking prison in the basement and wouldn’t let her out no matter how hard Klaus, Diego and Allison argued for her release. 

Then Vanya broke out, destroyed the house, killed Pogo and Mom. The showdown at the theater had been a nightmare. Turns out, Ben had been haunting Klaus this whole time. Luther’s dumb plan to kill Vanya almost got them killed and the fucking Apocalypse happened, but Five saved them all and they traveled back to the beginning of the week. They agreed to help Vanya but none helped more than Diego.

“I’m so scared of myself.” She admitted one night.

“Oh V…”

“I’m a monster, Diego. I blew up the moon, destroyed our house, killed Mom and Pogo. I killed everyone!”

“Hey, you’re not a monster.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not lying! You’re my sister and my best friend. You fucked up, but we all do. I’m gonna help you through this, Van. We’re gonna overcome this.”

Diego moved into Vanya’s apartment after that late night talk. He slept on the couch and kept her company, talked her down from nightmares and helped her learn control. Things weren’t perfect, but Diego knew they would make it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every mother Diego ever had loves the hell outta him, fight me on it.  
> 


	3. Allison

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made Allison part Jamaican because she looks mixed race but I can't think of traditional African-American dishes so I went with Allison being born in the United States but being part white and part Jamaican.  
> TRIGGER WARNING: Racism (I don't use any racist slurs but allude to them), sexism, attempted sexual assault/sexual assault depending on your definition(not graphic I promise) starting at "It went from flattering to terrifying in a matter of weeks, he wouldn’t stop calling her, touching her, standing too close to her and even smelling her." and ending at "I heard a rumor you forgot about this, stopped harassing me and never bothered me again.”, abuse of power, miscarriage and still birth and as always, child abuse(from Reginald).  
> ALSO SUPER IMPORTANT: I'm putting all the tags for this chapter and future chapters in when I post this chapter. Some of it you'll be able to know right away which sibling its for. Know in every chapter I'll give a trigger warning and in heavier stuff I'll tell you where it is so you can skip it if it's too much.

On October 1st, 1989, Mary Jones went into labor in the hospital staff room. She hadn’t been pregnant when the day began and had screamed in horror and pain as her body suddenly changed. She dropped her coffee mug in shock and pain, catching the attention of the room. Her colleagues gaped in horror before rushing to help her. Everything happened so fast, Mary could barely keep up. She was in a hospital bed telling one of her colleagues she needed to push before she could even process what was going on. When the infant’s cries hit her ears Mary began crying. 

“Here, let's get to her Mommy.” The doctor said, holding the baby out to her.

“No, no I can’t.” Mary replied, shaking her head. “Get her out of here, please. I can’t.”

The doctor made a face but handed the newborn to a nurse to be taken away, leaving Mary to deliver the afterbirth and take care of her. Mary sobbed in her hospital bed once it was all over. This had never been apart of her plans. She was a nurse, she was engaged and had plans to move to Jamaica next year to be with her fiance and closer to her dad’s family. Nowhere in her plans and life was there room for a baby. When a nurse came back to ask her if she wanted to see her daughter she said she wanted to give the baby up for adoption. She signed away her parental rights when the social worker came later in the day. She didn’t want to see the baby or hold the baby. She couldn’t get attached. So Mary moved on from the baby she had birthed, rarely thinking of her and never trying to seek her out. The baby was put in a foster home only for Sir Reginald Hargreeves to show up two weeks later and pay a large amount of money for the little girl. With his money and influence, Baby Girl Jones disappeared from the foster care system and became Number Three Hargreeves.

Number Three was an affectionate baby, she loved to be held and loved cuddling. Number Three was the first to smile, fourth to roll over, last to walk and the first to talk. Number Three’s power became seen when she was two and played Simon Says for the first time. She was able to make whoever she was talking to do anything if she used the phrases “Simon says” or “I heard a rumor”. As she got older, she became most fond of the latter. Nanny Sophia had been Number Three’s favorite nanny until she died when the children were two, after that Number Three took a shine to Nanny Hannah. Nanny Hannah would allow Number Three to play dress up and style Number Three’s hair in such pretty ways. Nanny Hannah played with them when she had time, she’d been the first person Number Three had a tea party with. Out of all her siblings, Number Three was closest to Number One, always had been, even though they were both too stubborn for their own good and bossy. She liked Number Six though, he was quiet and kind, didn’t take the bait when she taunted him so she didn’t have to fight for dominance. She got along with Number Five the least, he was just as stubborn as her but never let her win just to please her. She hates that.

Number Three was four years old when the nannies all left and Mom came. At first Number Three didn’t like Mom. It was Mom’s fault that Nanny Hannah left. She didn’t really care about the other nannies leaving but Nanny Hannah was the best! Number Three didn’t have much time to revel in her dislike for Mom though, as only a month after Mom came, Number Three was brought to Dad.

“I have a very important mission for you, Number Three. Do not let me down.”

Number Three had been so excited. He went to  **her** for help! Not her brothers, not even Number One! She wanted so badly to make Dad happy, to make him proud. She nodded her head eagerly and told him she’d be good. Number Three was taken down to the basement, where Pogo was waiting by the door. She was so confused, her young mind unable to comprehend why there was a door with all these scary locks on it. She became even more confused when the door opened to show Number Seven and Mom. Why would Number Seven be in this scary room? Mom, Pogo and Dad all said she was sick but Number Three thought sick meant toys and attention, not a scary room.

Mom was giving Number Seven medicine. Number Seven struggled to swallow the pill, as the children had only ever had syrup medicines before. Dad made a mean face and Number Three’s stomach clenched. Dad wasn’t happy and that’s not what Number Three wants! She wants this to be perfect so she’ll get the rare compliment from Dad. Mom compliments her all the time, which she likes, but Dad rarely does which makes it all the more special.

“You are to use your power, Number Three.” 

“What do you want me to say?” Number Three asks.

She likes using her power. It’s fun to watch people do exactly what she says, but there are strict rules about her power.

“You are to tell Number Seven that she is ordinary.”

Number Three frowns. Ordinary? Why that? But she doesn’t dare ask, Dad hates being asked questions when he gives an order. Number Three doesn’t step forward, she just stares at her sister. She doesn’t understand, she’s confused. Isn’t Number Seven sick?

“Now, Number Three!” Dad shouts, jolting her out of her thoughts.

The little girl squeaks, earning a harsh look from her father, and scurries over to the bed her sister is laying on. Number Seven looks so happy to see her.

“Number Three, I missed you!” Number Seven says happily. “It’s lonely here.”

“I missed you too.” Number Three says truthfully. She isn’t close with Number Seven, but she missed her sister. It was so weird to have her gone.

“Number Three! Quit your dilly-dallying at once!” Dad yells, making her flinch.

“ _ I heard a rumor… I heard a rumor that you believe you’re ordinary _ .” Number Three says.

Number Seven’s eyes glaze over and before Number Three do anything, Dad grabs her arm and pulls her away. She’s brought back upstairs and to Dad’s office. She wants to cry because she knows being taken to Dad’s office is a bad thing, but Dad will get more mad if she cries. She doesn’t know what she did wrong, she did exactly what he said. She wanted his praise, his attention, not to make him angry.

“You are to tell no one this happened, Number Three.” He tells her.

“Why?” She can’t stop herself from asking and he turns to sneer at her.

“Because I told you to! Do not question me!”

“Yes, Father.” She whispers.

“Good, now go to your room and forget this ever happened!”

And overtime, she did. Number Seven was back and more meek than ever. As the years went by Number Three began to believe she’d dreamed it and left it at that.

From a young age Number Three noticed that none of her siblings looked like her. Most of her siblings had very pale, white skin and the other two had darker skin but not the same as hers. It didn’t bother her, but it confused her. Why did they have different skin? She had asked Mom once, and the explanation was the best the five year old could hope for.

“You all have different birth mothers, sweetheart, from all over the world. People from different places are more likely to look certain ways.” Mom says with a smile.

That didn’t explain entirely why people have different skin colors but it was enough for Number Three. A couple weeks later Pogo would explain to the basics of why people actually have different skin colors but it mostly just bored Number Three.

When they were six Mom started making all these weird dishes for lunch. Number Three really didn’t like some of them and would whine about it to Number One, knowing better than to complain about anything Mom does in front of Number Two. Finally Number One asked about it. At first, Number Three didn’t know what to feel about the fact that on Wednesdays the food they had was from her culture. She didn’t even know what her culture was. It took her a shameful two weeks to ask Mom.

“You’re half Jamaican, dear.” Mom said with a smile.

“What’s that mean?” Number Three asked, wrinkling her nose.

Mom had shown her a map and pointed to Jamaica. “It’s an Island in the Caribean.”

Number Three bit her bottom lip. All of this was very confusing for her, but she wanted to know, she wanted to understand. 

“Can you teach me about it?” She asked softly.

“Of course, dear.” Mom said and placed a kiss on Number Three’s cheek.

Mom taught her about the history, how the Spanish had forcibly taken the and from the native people and people were kidnapped from Africa, brought over to Jamaica as slaves. Mom explained that Number Three had dark skin because her ancestors were African, like many of the people in Jamaica, but she’s not as dark as some other people are because she has European ancestors too. Mom taught her about the people and the land. As Number Three grew she got her hands on as many magazines, books and movies that had people that looked like her in them. It didn’t matter how many people she had to rumor, it was worth it to get her prize. Some of the women had hairstyles Number Three had never seen before and she was blown away by them. She wanted to look like those women with such amazing hair. They all looked so beautiful and proud.

At nine Dad decided they needed names for when they went public. Number One, now named Luther, had been first. Number Three refused to wait and went searching for Mom.

“Oh hello dear.” Mom greeted with her usual smile.

“I want my name.” Number Three blurted out.

“Is someone too excited to wait?” Mom teases good naturedly, making Number Three blush. “Not to worry dear, that’s normal with children your age.”

“So I can have my name now?”

“Yes sweetheart. Your name is now Allison.”

Allison had left practically skipping with excitement. She had a name now, a real name like everyone in her books, movies and magazines did! She went to each of her siblings one by one and showed off her new name. Her siblings proudly announced their names too, except for Luther and Five. Five refused to tell anyone the name Mom gave him, insisting Five is his name and he wouldn’t change it. Luther, on the other hand, wasn’t comfortable with being Luther, so he wasn’t showing off like the others.

“It’s a good name. You’ll get used to it, O-I mean Luther.”

He gave her a small smile and listened to her gush about her name for the rest of the night dutifully.

Allison had learned about racism, read about the horrible things that happened in history but she never understood it until the Umbrella Academy was unveiled to the world. She had never interacted with people outside of her nannies and her family until then. When they rescued people some of them would give her a dirty look but gush over Luther or Five or Klaus. She noticed Ben and Diego got similar treatments but she didn’t connect the dots until one man called her a word she’d never heard before. She knew it had to be bad because he was snarling and being aggressive, so when they got home she asked Mom what it meant.

Mom had stiffened and turned to Allison with a worried expression on her robot face. “Where did you hear that, dear?”

“One of the victims from the robbery today. He said he didn’t need help from a dirty n-” Mom cut her off.

“Don’t say it again, it’s a very bad word.” Mom said seriously.

“I figured that, but what does it mean?” Allison asks, huffing slightly and crossing her arms.

“It’s a very rude term for a black person.”

“What? Why would he call me that?”

“Some people are very close minded, my sweet girl. They’re bitter and mean and hate people who are different from them.”

“But I saved him!”

“I know, honey.”

Allison was overwhelmed. She was confused, angry, and sad. She didn’t understand how someone could hate her when she saved them. Pogo ended up sitting her, Diego and Ben down and explaining that the reason they were getting treated so differently on missions and in the news was because of racism. He didn’t explain a lot but it hurt Allison so deeply. Wasn’t racism supposed to be over? Slaves are free and black people have equal rights, wasn’t all of this over with? Allison would later scoff at her own nativity and ignorance. 

As she became aware of it, she saw it everywhere. How the news anchors made comments about if people should trust her to save them, how they talked about her hair, her skin and the way she talks so much. She even saw it in Dad. When she was thirteen Mom put Allison’s hair in box braids and Allison loved it. She looked so pretty, but the second Dad saw it he flipped out. He said the hair style made Allison look like she was from the projects, dirty and stupid. Allison hadn’t even known what he meant by “projects” at the time but she was forced to take her hair out of the braids and warned if she ever did it again all of her hair would be cut off. She cried like a baby that night and lashed out in anger. She tore up magazines, broke a chair and her mirror. Ben snuck into her room to comfort her.

“Why would he say that? It was so pretty.” Allison sniffled into her brother’s shoulder.

“He’s a jerk, Ally. You’re hair was so pretty and it still is.” Ben soothes.

“I don’t get it. Why does he even care what my hair looks like?” 

“Because he’s a racist.”

“What? No he can’t be, Ben!”

“Why the hell not?” Ben demands, cocking up an eyebrow.

“Because he has a black daughter, a mexican son and a korean son!” Allison exclaims like Ben is stupid.

“Yeah and anytime we do something that reminds him of that he gets angry and says rude things about us and people who look like us.”

Allison frowned. All of this was so confusing but she nodded jerkily and got another warm hug from Ben. He helped her clean up the glass and bandaged her hand without asking for anything in return. The next morning she was informed she’d be doing individual training for the rest of the week instead of regular training and her heart sunk. Father pushed Allison’s powers to the point the girl cried, only to be hit for her dramatics. She was made to rumor until she couldn’t speak, forced to make people her father had gotten from a state prison to do horrible things to test the limits of her powers. She would soon have to move on from her hurt because only a week later Five disappeared. At first Allison didn’t think much of it, Five was dramatic. She figured he hadn’t come home yet to try and make Dad sweat, but by the end of the night, seeing her siblings begin to panic caused her stomach to churn. 

The next morning you could cut the tension with a knife. At breakfast Allison couldn’t help but notice Vanya’s panic. She rarely noticed much about Vanya, she almost blended into the walls, but that morning she couldn’t tear her eyes off her sister.

After breakfast Allison waited for Luther to take charge, organize his siblings for a search for Five. He was so obsessed with being Number One, being a leader, she thought he would have snagged the opportunity to prove his leadership to his siblings. However, he didn’t. Diego had been the one to seek her out and she’d been shocked at first, but it made sense. Diego also wanted to prove himself as a leader and he took this opportunity.

“Five s-s-still h-hasn’t come home. B-Ben and I are w-w-worried.” Diego said, leaning against the door frame.

“We should look for him.” Allison said.

“We h-have to get Dad’s ap-ap-approval.”

“But he hasn’t called a search yet! If we wait on him he might never!” Allison exclaimed, glaring at her brother.

“I k-know! We n-n-need to c-come together as a g-group and c-confront Dad. Show a u-u-u-united front to D-Dad.” Diego said fiercely, giving her a strong look.

Allison huffed and flicked her hair over her shoulder. He hated Diego talking to her like that, but her brother had a good point. Showing a united front would work best in trying to confront their father.

“Okay. We’ll get the others together.”

“Ben is g-getting K-K-Klaus and V-Vanya. You mind h-h-handling L-Luther?” 

Allison fought a smirk. It was so tempting to bait her brother that Diego needed her help with Luther. Say maybe she should be Number One or Number Two because they’re too stupid, but now wasn’t the time. If they wanted to appear united, they couldn’t be at each other’s throats.

“Yeah I’ll get him.”

“T-Thanks.”

Convincing Luther was easy. She could tell Luther wasn’t happy he hadn’t come up with the idea and unhappy that they were questioning their father’s wishes and judgment. Luther had always taken their father’s words as law, never to be questioned or analyzed. His competitive attitude with Diego made things worse. If Diego was going to question Dad, Luther was going to back their father even more. She thinks if it was any situation besides one of their siblings being missing, he would do it.

After morning training they all went to Dad’s office. The six of them were all huddled in the cramped door frame because they weren’t allowed in. If the situation wasn’t so serious Allison would have elbowed her brother’s in the ribs for being in her space.

“Father, when are we going to search for Five?” Luther asked, taking the lead.

“You won’t. The Umbrella Academy has more important missions to deal with then searching for an insolent brat. Number Five will come back on his own.” Dad had said, not bothering to look up from his notebook.

Allison heard Vanya suck in a sharp breath and felt her own heart drop. She looked to Luther, hoping he’d take the bull by the horns and argue, try to get their Dad to let them look for their brother. Luther doesn’t say or do anything, he just clenches his jaw. 

Diego steps forward. “W-w-w-what if h-he doesn’t c-come back?”

Dad finally looked up from his notebook to give Diego a nasty look that had Allison standing up straighter. “Speak clearly, Number two!”

Allison saw Diego flinch but he opened his mouth to speak again, only for Klaus to beat him to the punch. “He asked ‘what if Five doesn’t come back?’ You’re not just going to let our brother rot out there are you?!”

Allison was glad no one was looking at her because her jaw dropped at her brother’s outburst. She would later think she must have looked like an idiot with her mouth hanging open like that.

“Mind your tongue, Number Four!” Dad shouted.

Klaus huffed, shaking his head slightly like Dad was disappointing him, and stormed away. Over his shoulder he yelled that if Dad wasn’t going to look for Five “fine” but not to expect Klaus to do the same. The rest of them quickly retreated from the office door frame to avoid punishment and scolding. Allison saw Ben, Diego and Vanya going to follow Klaus and felt conflicted. Five may be a pain in the ass but he’s her brother and she didn’t want anything bad to happen. She wanted to go search for him but if she did, Dad would be so mad. He still hadn’t forgiven her for the box braids and she worried how bad her punishment would be if she disobeyed him so soon after the braids. It wasn’t an easy decision to make, but Allison followed Luther back to their studies.

She could only give her studies half of her attention because she was so busy thinking about her siblings that were looking for Five. Would they find him? Was Five hurt? How badly would Dad punish them if they found Five? How bad would he punish them if they came back empty handed? Her stomach twisted at the prospect. When her siblings returned from their search Luther and Allison were together working on school work. They could hear their Father’s furious rant from where they were. As the yelling started Allison felt a lump in her throat and finally the words became audible.

“You insolent whelps! You do not disobey me!”

“We only wanted to find Five. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

**_CRASH!_ **

Allison jumped in her chair, her hand shooting out to grab onto Luther’s in pure fear. Luther’s eyes were wide as he stared at the door.

“Vanya!” Klaus, Ben and Diego cried out.

“You worthless girl! You are nothing but an ordinary, good for nothing, talentless child! You should count yourself lucky I let you stay here!” Reginald had snarled.

The rest had been inaudible but Allison felt hot tears build up. She stood up from her chair but didn’t go to get her siblings. It was no point, she convinced herself. They were already being punished, they had made their bed, but if she came to support them now she’d only be hurting himself.

She didn’t see her other siblings for the rest of the day. The next morning, Mom told them that Klaus, Ben and Diego had been taken for individual training and Allison’s stomach churned. Individual training was never pleasant and when Dad was mad, it was torture. Vanya than stepped into Allison’s line of sight and she thought she might throw up. Vanya had a nasty bruise on her face and seemed out of it. Her eyes were glossy and her face was blank, like a doll’s. This scared Allison horribly. People aren’t supposed to act like that! Something had to be wrong. She tried all day to get Vanya to talk to her, but Vanya only seemed hazy, unable to follow along in a conversation and drowsy. This only scared Allison even more.

Later in the day, she got to see her Father’s anger up close. She had been brought to his office mid-day. He was waiting for her with a sneer already on his face.

“Number Three, finally graced me with your presence I see.”

“I’m sorry, Father. I was finishing lessons with Mother.” Allison said meekly.

Dad scoffed loudly. “Foolish girl! When I request your presence you stop what you are doing and come immediately!”

Allison flinched and ducked her head down. “Yes, Father.”

“Look up when I speak to you, Number Three!” He snapped and she was quick to obey. “What do you have to say about yourself for yesterday?”

“I didn’t help them, Father.” Allison said quickly.

“I know that, idiot girl! You didn’t stop them! You could have forced them to obey but apparently you’re too stupid! If you hadn’t been so moronic things would be easier on us all, Number Three!”

Allison had been assigned more training before dismissed from his office. She hid in her room, sniffling and whimpering to herself as she hugged herself around the middle. She wasn’t trying to be stupid! She didn’t know Father wanted her to use her gift on her siblings, she’s not a mind reader! But she could never say these things to her father. That night she snuck into Luther’s room. Her eyes were watering and her bottom lip quivering. She sat next to her brother in silence for a few minutes before she spoke.

“We should have gone with them.”

“They broke the rules, Allison! We were right not to!” Luther huffed, giving her a look like she had lost her mind.

“But maybe if all of us went Dad wouldn’t have been so mad!” Allison argued, thinking that if they had stood together as a united front maybe their father would have seen reason. It was far fetched but it was a theory.

“They brought this on themselves.” Luther stated gruffly.

Allison stared at her brother with sadness and pity. Luther didn’t think beyond Dad and the academy, she knew that but it was still hard to see. She left his room, thinking of how her life wasn’t how she wanted it to be. She’d make it better, she had to.

In the aftermath, Allison tried to explain herself and apologize to her siblings but the distance between herself and her siblings grew no matter how much she tried to close the gap. Luther was obedient to a fault and the rest of her siblings saw her as Luther and Dad’s loyal follower. She could see most of her siblings looking for lives outside of the academy and she was no different. She used her gifts to get movies, magazines, books and get into theaters. She could see her future clearly. She was going to leave this all in the dust and became Allison Hargreeves, the movie star.

She and Ben continued to have a quiet understanding of each other. Having so many white siblings was hard, but having a compassionate brother like Ben made it easier. She would never turn to Diego about her frustrations, he is Latino but he’s too stand-offish for Allison. She could see most of her siblings seemed to be pairing off. Ben and Klaus were supporting each other while Diego and Vanya stuck to each other like glue. Allison understood, Luther and Ben made things easier for her. Luther helped in the day by day, seeing pride in being heroes while Ben helped her plan for the future, show her how to get to her better life. Ben helped her find adds for agents, got her pamphlets on how to apply for a visa to the United States as an actress and where to look for casting calls. In return, she’d listen to him go on about the books he’d been reading and how he wanted to go to college, be an English teacher and travel to South Korea one day. It wasn’t perfect, but it was good.

Everything turned to shit when Ben died.

They’d only been seventeen when it happened, a mission gone wrong. The Horror tore Ben apart, Allison had been close enough to hear her brother’s screams. There wasn’t anything they could do to help him, but that didn’t make it any easier to deal with. Klaus had been hysterical, he wouldn’t stop screaming and tried to rip chunks of his hair out. Mom had to sedate him and keep him in the infirmary for two days. Pogo had been ill when they brought back Ben’s remains and the ape had been the quietest Allison had ever seen him for the next couple of weeks. Diego had been full of righteous anger, mostly directed at Dad. She’d see him giving their father the most murderous eyes and he’d train for hours, hurting himself and destroying things. Vanya completely shut down, barley leaving her room, eating or talking. Diego seemed to be the only one who could get through to her. Luther was so lost, stuck between earth shattering grief and guilt and trying to be strong for Dad. Allison herself couldn’t stop crying. She would seek out Luther for comfort but sometimes she’d sneak into Ben’s room and sob into his pillow. 

She’d hug his pillow to her chest or run her fingers across his piles of books, thinking about how it seemed like he was just out for a minute and would be back any second. The room didn’t look like it’s owner had died, but the house was filled with sorrow.

The public funeral was first and Vanya wasn’t allowed to go. Allison didn’t really care, Diego definitely did, but Allison didn’t have many thoughts or feelings for Number Seven. Her sister had been hidden from the public from the get-go, Diego was foolish to believe their father would change that, even for Ben’s funeral. While she didn’t care who attended the funeral, when Dad said they wouldn’t be allowed to speak at Ben’s public funeral, she was pissed. She was happy to see Diego was also seething with rage and she felt frustrated with Luther that he wasn’t sharing their anger. Klaus was too high to give an opinion. The church the funeral was held in was packed despite being the biggest church in the city of Toronto. For the first time ever, Allison wanted to scream at the press to go away, leave her alone. Her brother just died, didn’t they have any decency? 

Allison paid their father’s speech no mind, staring at the wall as he spoke during the funeral. She could hear Klaus giggling softly beside her and she ignored that too. Afterwards people flocked to the Hargreeves family, taking turns to give their condolences. An Asian woman was taken away before she could even speak to them, dragged away by security as she snarled at Reginald Hargreeves. The following day was the private funeral. It was dramatic, as to be expected of her family and Allison wanted to strangle Diego and Vanya for making this about them. Father unveiled a statue of Ben, but it didn’t even look like Ben. As she went back into the house she couldn’t help but think that Ben would have hated that statue.

A week after Ben’s private funeral Klaus disappeared in the dead of night with Dad’s more expensive knick knacks. Allison almost laughed when Pogo told them and instructed the remaining members of The Umbrella Academy to find Klaus. Allison didn’t look very hard for Klaus, he didn’t want to be at the mansion, so why drag him back? Personally, she thought he was smart, getting out now. In the end, they didn’t find him and Allison spent the months leading up to her eighteenth birthday rumoring herself into getting an agent and bit part in a movie. The movie was a children’s movie and she was set to play a bitchy babysitter, she’d never win an oscar for this role but it was a start.

Their eighteenth birthday came and Diego left that day. Despite the two of them not being close, Diego gave her a smile and wished her luck in life on his way out. It made Allison feel good to know that she and Diego were parting on good terms. She didn’t know what he was going to do but she hoped he’d enjoy it and he’d be happy. Two days after she turned eighteen Allison packed up her belongings to leave for Hollywood. She looked around her room with a wistful smile, it was so weird to think that she’d finally be leaving this hell hole. She heard the floor creak and turned to see Luther, eyeing her packed bags with confusion.

“Why do you have a suitcase packed?” Luther asked.

“I’m leaving, Luther. I’m going to Hollywood.” Allison announced proudly.

“Wait what? Why?” Luther demanded.

“I was offered a part in a movie! I’ve got an agent and he thinks I could be really successful!” Allison practically squeals with excitement, picturing her successful future, she was so close she could practically taste it.

“But what about the academy? People need us.” Luther raises his chin, his tone changing to his “I’m Number One” tone.

Allison sighed. “Luther, this is my dream, to go to hollywood, be an actor. I’m not going to give it up.” She doesn’t want to leave her siblings here to rote, so she tries to reason with him. “There’s police who are perfectly capable of handling crime, Luther. We don’t need to stay here, you don’t need to stay here. How bout you pack a bag and come with me?”

“I can’t leave! Police can’t handle crime, you know this, Allison! We can’t just turn our backs on Dad and the people who need us!” Luther exclaims

Allison sighs. She figured he wouldn’t come with her, but she had to try. Luther may be hard headed but he’s her brother and she had to at least try to give him an out.  She shakes her head and grabs her bags. “Goodbye Luther.”

Allison leaves the room and goes down to the living room where she knows Vanya is. She expected Vanya to be as surprised as Luther, but instead her sister seemed to have expected it.

“Your gonna be an actress right?” Vanya asks, shocking Allison a little.

“Yeah.” She says, not thinking to ask how Vanya knows this.

“You’ll do great, I know it.”

Allison smiles brightly. She didn’t know what Vanya wanted out of life but she was happy at least one of her siblings believed in her. “Thanks Vanya. I gotta go to catch my flight but I’ll call.” She gives Vanya a brief hug and leaves.

Hollywood wasn’t all she thought it would be. Her first movie went by quickly and then she was back to trying to find work. Her apartment was tiny, introducing herself as an actress often got her a scoff. She hadn’t had too much experience with the outside world before she left but she hadn’t realized just how prejudiced people are until she was out on her own. However, for the first time in her life Allison was regularly around people who looked like her. She’d never been around other black people before and while she knew a bit about the culture from Mom’s teachings, it was a completely other thing to be immersed in it for the first time in her life. She started wearing her hair in a natural afro instead of having it straightened. She celebrated Kwanza with some of her new friends and found herself loving every second of embracing her black identity. 

However, her race seemed to be impacting her career. Her agent wasn’t sending her towards the roles she wanted. She kept being sent to casting calls for characters named “baby mama” or “drug dealers girlfriend” and a couple times “hood girl number two”. She got so mad, these roles weren’t what she wanted at all and she wasn’t going to take it! At a casting call for a bit part as a gangster’s girlfriend in a movie set to be a blockbuster, she looked at the casting department and the director and did what she had to.

“ _ I heard a rumor you thought I was perfect for the lead female role _ .” Allison says.

She watches a blank look take over their faces before the burst out how she needs to be the female lead. She beams, feigning shock. She goes back to her shoebox apartment that night and grins to herself. Once production started the director began introducing her to other casting directors and directors, often gushing about her talent. She booked two more roles, one as the lead in a romantic comedy and the other as the best friend in a comedy. The movie hit the theaters and got mixed reviews but she had done it, her career was now taking off. She basked in the attention, soaking it up eagerly. She loves the attention, the adrenaline rush the attention gives her and the love fans give her.

She started the comedy first, it was fun and she made friends with the other actors on set. Then she started on the romantic comedy and at first it was amazing, until the director started taking too much interest in her. It went from flattering to terrifying in a matter of weeks, he wouldn’t stop calling her, touching her, standing too close to her and even smelling her. She tried to play nice but then one day he cornered her in her trailer. He forced himself on her and she tried to push him off.

“Get off me!” She cried.

“Stop playing hard to get baby, don’t be a tease.” He panted against her skin, making her cringe.

“Stop!”

“Shut up, bitch! You fucking whore, teasing me like that! I can destroy you with a blink of an eye!” He snarled as he tore off her shirt.

Allison screams and does what she must. “ _ I heard a rumor you stopped! _ ” And he did, freezing. She rushes away from him and wraps a blanket around her torso immediately. She glares at him, shaking in fear and anger. “ _ I heard a rumor you forgot about this, stopped harassing me and never bothered me again. _ ”

A familiar blank expression takes over his face and leaves her trailer. When the door closes she collapses onto the chair and tries to breathe as tears burst out of her eyes. How could he do that to her? She’s been a hero since she was a child, how did she end up in that situation? She decided she had to push this behind her, just like she did her hero days. She’d never allow anyone to touch her against her will again. She calls home once she’s calmed down and listens to Luther babble about a boring mission. It isn’t much but it reinforces the idea that she’s strong, powerful and she’ll never let this happen again.

Life went on, the way it does and Allison made her way to the top of the food chain. It doesn’t stop people from trying to cast her as a black stereotype or talking to her like she’s dumb. Male directors make snide comments about her being a typical idiot woman when she messes up her lines. The sexism, racism and general dickishness of the entertainment industry was harsh, but Allison didn’t survive the academy to give up because of a bunch of pricks. She uses her gifts as well as her acting talent to prove to the world she’s a star. She makes good money now and stopped living in her shoebox apartment a while ago, now living in a luxurious apartment and spending her free nights partying with her celebrity friends. At twenty she has everything she ever dreamed of, but something is missing.

It takes her a while to figure it out but then she does: she wants a family of her own. She wants a husband she’s helplessly in love with and children she’d die for, like Mom would for them. So, Allison begins to hunt for a boyfriend. For a while it feels hopeless, none of them are good enough to be the love of her life, but then she meets Patrick. He’s charming, handsome and kind. He’s older than her by about five years and a little less famous than her, but he’s not using her for fame. They date for months and Allison falls in love with him, but he starts to pull back. He’s going to leave her, she knows it and she can’t let that happen.

“ _ I heard a rumor that you love me. _ ” She whispers to him and watches as a blank look takes over his face and then is replaced with absolute devotion. 

“Allison.” He breathes, his eyes full of love like he was seeing her for the first time.

Allison smiles, she got what she deserves, the man of her dreams loving her like he should. After a year of dating they buy a beautiful house in Calabasas together and get engaged four months later. Her career doesn’t slow down either, she books the lead in a TV show and an indie movie. Her life is exactly as she wants it to be at this point, she’s engaged to a man she loves with an amazing career. When the press finds out about their engagement they’re all over the magazines, TV and blogs. Allison loves the attention but Patrick doesn’t. When the invitations go out, everyone in the industry wants one but later she realizes no one in her family was invited. She knows she should call them and apologize and invite them, but she doesn’t. Maybe it’s selfish but she doesn’t want her wedding to be about The Umbrella Academy, she wants it to be about her.

Allison and Patrick marry on the beach and have their reception in a beautiful hotel with the ocean in the horizon, making all the pictures look magical. They dance to a love song that makes Allison’s eyes water. They honeymoon in Italy and barely leave each other’s sides. Things are good, so good that she should have known it wouldn’t last.

It starts when they go back to LA. Allison liked clubbing but not as much as some of her friends, so after a night of bar hopping, she leaves before some of her friends. She calls a cab and is waiting outside when she sees a familiar face.

“Klaus?”

He looks up. He’s older than when she last saw him, has facial hair and his curls fall to his shoulders now. He’s impossibly skinny, she can see his bones from twenty feet away, purple bags hang under his eyes and his arms are covered in track marks.

“Ally!” He chirps happily and bounds over to her for a hug.

She hugs back dumbfounded. She hadn’t seen Klaus since he disappeared after Ben’s funeral, she was in shock. But when they pulled away she could see he was shaking and sniffing a lot.

“Klaus, what are you doing in LA?” She asks instead of asking what happened to him.

“Seeing some friends. The nightlife here is fantastic, Ally! I really must go clubbing sometime with you!”

“Where are you staying?”

“Oh you know, here and there.”

Allison frowns deeper. That’s not an answer. His clothes are so thin for the winter, even just the winter in Cali. “Do you need anything? Can I call you a cab?”

“No but now that you mention it, I could really use some money.” Klaus says with a sweet smile.

Allison gives him fifty dollars just as her taxi pulls up. Klaus gives her a big sloppy kiss on the cheek and waves her off as she gets in the cab. The next day she goes looking for him but she doesn’t find him.

Allison forces herself to put her encounter with Klaus behind her and focuses on trying for a baby. She always wanted to be a mother, have a big family with kids that look like her. After five months of having sex everyday, they’ve had no success and they see a doctor.

“Don’t worry, sometimes this just takes time. Find out your ovulation cycle and work around that.” The doctor tells them with a kind smile.

Allison takes the doctor’s advice and finds out her ovulation cycle and they make love according to her cycle. Two months after seeing the doctor Allison gets pregnant for the first time. She bursts into happy tears when the test shows a pink plus sign. Patrick kisses her passionately and holds her tight. She tells everyone she knows, eagerly babbling about the life growing in her womb. They’re so ecstatic and excited that they never could have expected what happened. When she was 12 weeks along she wakes up feeling her stomach cramping and hurting. She goes to the bathroom and finds she’s bleeding.

“Patrick! Patrick!” She shrieks, staring at her underwear in shock.

Patrick bursts into the bathroom, panting, eyes blown wide and panicked. When he sees how terrified she is, bloody underwear around her thighs and tears burning her cheeks, he takes her to the hospital. She miscarried. She’s reassured it’s not her fault, there’s nothing she could have done to prevent it, sometimes these things just happen. Her heart hurts and all she wants to do is cry. Patrick comforts her and takes on the painful job of telling their friends and family what happened so they won’t pester Allison about it.

The month following her miscarriage Allison feels like a stranger in her own body, her own life and her own home. She can’t help but wonder what she did wrong. Why her baby? What had she done to deserve this? How could she prevent this from happening again? Patrick was wonderful, loving and supportive. He helped her start to feel more herself overtime, encouraging her to push herself for her goals again and reminding her everyday that he loves her. Four months after the miscarriage they start trying again. Allison gets pregnant pretty quickly this time and they decide not to tell anyone until they get to her 18th week of pregnancy, the middle of her second trimester, before she tells anyone. Allison has another miscarriage at 10 weeks, so no one knows besides the both of them. The next two years Allison gets pregnant twice more, the first pregnancy after her second miscarriage is almost perfect. She makes it to her second trimester and finds out she’s having a little boy. They plan to name him Micheal and set up his nursery, they tell everyone about him. It all falls apart when she goes in for a doctor’s appointment at 31 weeks pregnant, just eight months along, and the doctor tells her that Micheal has no heartbeat. She’s forced to give birth to a baby that never takes his first breath and they bury him the very next week.

Ironically, her pregnancy after Micheal wasn’t planned, it was an accident and Allison had been terrified when she realized she was pregnant. She sobbed into Patrick’s arms when she told him and he held her tight, promising her that things would be okay this time. Somehow he was right, she didn’t miscarry and after nine months of pregnancy she gives birth to a living, breathing, beautiful baby girl they name Claire. She’s a mom at twenty-three, only a couple months shy of turning twenty-four, but she’s happy.

Claire is perfect, healthy as a horse and beautiful as can be. They take tons of pictures that Allison makes sure to send a copy of to Mom back in Toronto. They doted on Claire, she was their very own miracle, but babies are exhausting. They spent Claire’s first few months absolutely exhausted, running on fumes, but it was worth it. When Claire’s first birthday rolled around, they threw a tiny party, just the three of them. Allison had wanted to invite Mom, show off her daughter to the android who had raised her, but she knew her mother would never come. Allison’s career continued, her TV show got canceled but she booked a few more movies and even voiced a character in a Disney movie that became very popular. Allison had wanted more children, a big family, but after another stillbirth, a girl they named Rachel, she and Patrick decided they weren’t going to try for children anymore. Patrick got a vasectomy and they were content to continue with their life. Being a parent was exhausting and it gave Allison a newfound appreciation for Mom. If Allison was this tired with just one toddler, she couldn’t imagine how exhausting it must have been to take care of seven toddlers all at once. 

Shortly after Allison’s twenty-fifth birthday she got a letter from Luther. She hadn’t heard from her brother in three years and the news the letter brought wasn’t really good news. Luther was going to the moon, the fucking moon. After all these years Luther was still being controlled by their father and as much as it upsets Allison, there’s nothing she can do.

“What’s wrong?” Patrick asks as when he sees her staring down at the letter.

“Luther’s going to the moon.” Allison says with a humorless laugh.

“What? Why is your brother going to the moon?” Patrick asks, his forehead wrinkling in confusion.

“Because our dad told him to.” 

She throws the letter away and tries not to think about it, but that night when she’s telling Claire a bedtime story, she doesn’t go for the normal storybook and instead tells one of the nicer stories of the Umbrella Academy. The story was watered down so her two year old could enjoy it and Allison realized this was the first time Claire was ever hearing about her aunt and uncles. It became a tradition after that, every night when Allison would tell Claire a story, it would be about her family.

For a while things were peaceful again, her home life was perfect and her career continued to be steady, but then Claire turned three and she became incredibly fussy. People said children had the “terrible twos” but for Claire, three was the age where she was a menace. She would scream for hours and hours and just wouldn’t stop. Allison did everything she could think of but nothing helped until finally one day “ _ I heard a rumor you calmed down _ .” Finally, Claire was calm for the first time all day and Allison let out a sigh of relief.

For a second, Allison felt guilty. She had rumored her daughter, she had used her gift on her baby girl. But then she thought about it, any parent with her gift would have done it. All parents had stories about how they wished they could just make their child calm down and Allison just had the advantage of being able to make that happen. Besides, she wasn’t making Claire do anything bad or hurting her, she was just calming her down. She moved on from the situation, occasionally using her power on Claire when her daughter wouldn’t be reasonable.

Time went on, they celebrated birthdays and anniversaries, traveled to other countries for work and vacations and Allison even won a golden globe for a crime drama where she played a paralyzed lawyer. For a while it seemed like her life was going nowhere but up. She should have known it would be too good to last.

“Patrick wait!” Allison cried, running after him.

She hadn’t meant for him to see her rumor Claire but it was too late and her husband was furious. Patrick turned around to face her, practically seething.

“How could you do that? What have you made her do? Made me do?” Patrick demanded.

“I-I-” Allison stammered, not knowing what to say.

Patrick gave her a disgusted look. “Get out Allison.”

“Wait! We can work this out!” She exclaims, reaching for him but he jerks back violently.

“Don’t touch me, Allison! How could you fucking do that to our daughter? God, what is wrong with you?!”

In the end, Allison left because if she didn’t, Patrick vowed to take Claire and leave. The next day, divorce papers were delivered to the hotel she was staying out. She stared dumbfounded at the paper in front of her. How did it go so wrong so fast?

Court was a nightmare. She thought the judge would understand her, understand that she hadn’t meant anyone harm. The judge didn’t though and Patrick was given full custody of Claire, Allison was given court mandated therapy. The press had a field day and for the first time since Ben’s funeral, Allison hated the attention. She holed away in her apartment for the first month, only leaving for therapy. It sucked. 

Her therapist kept using words like “traumatized” and “unlearning bad behavior”. She already knew a lot of the things Dad did was wrong but she learned most of the things she thought were okay weren’t. Looking down on others wasn’t okay, manipulating people wasn’t okay even if no one got hurt, lashing out and breaking things when upset isn’t okay. Allison had to throw away everything she’d come to learn as normal and start all over again, starting with vowing to never use her powers again. No one tells you how hard starting all over is. How embarrassing it is at twenty-nine to have to start all over while the press watches like hawks. She gets back into acting and tries to move forward while continuing her weekly therapy sessions.

Allison finds out her father died while standing on the red carpet for a movie she had a bit part in. She ran off and threw up from shock and disbelief. Her father had always seemed like an immortal figure, not quite real and completely indestructible. Returning to Canada had been tedious, she had worried about her therapy sessions and if leaving for her father’s funeral would ruin her chances of visitation rights, but she went anyway. Seeing Klaus again after all these years was gut wrenching, he looked so sickly and the wristband on his wrist let her know he’d recently been in rehab. Luther accusing everyone of murder made her wonder if coming here was really worth it.

Five’s return had been shocking and dismissal frustrating, but it was nothing compared to her fury at Patrick for refusing to her talk to Claire because she missed a therapy session to go to her dad’s fucking funeral. She took out her frustrations on Vanya but she tried to make it right. The break in by those assassins in masks didn’t help things, it only pushed them farther apart, but Allison kept trying. Then that guy, Leonard, popped up and added to the tension between the sisters. Allison was picking up on red flags but Vanya refuses to see it. Things came to a head when Allison found Vanya at Leonard’s cabin and tried to get her sister to go with her, tried to get her away from her murderer boyfriend. The reveal of Vanya’s powers awakened a very old memory for Allison, standing in a scary room and rumoring Vanya. She tries to explain herself, she’d been four, just trying to please Dad but Vanya was pure rage, too blinded by emotion to see logic and lashes out when Allison tries to rumor her sister.

Her throat is cut and Allison falls to the floor, clutching her throat.

“Allison!” Vanya screams, dropping her bow and rushing to her sister’s side. “Oh my god Allison! I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean it!”

Leonard came into the cabin and pulled Vanya away.

“We have to go, Vanya.” He says.

“I can’t leave her! I didn’t mean to! Allison!” Vanya cries, but Leonard drags her away.

Allison lays on the floor, gurgling blood and wondering if this would how she’d meet her end. Was this it? Would she never be able to make things better with her family? Would she never get to see her daughter again, hold her one last time?

Her brothers find her and she loses consciousness before they find her but they bring her back to the house and Mom fixes her.

While she’s recovering Luther locks Vanya away. Allison tries to free her sister but Luther stops her. Vanya destroys the house and goes on a tirade. Her brothers don’t listen to her and because of it, Vanya causes the apocalypse.

Allison will never forget standing behind her sister, a gun pointed at her head. Salty tears ran down her face as chaos erupted all around her. This wasn’t what she wanted, she didn’t want to hurt her sister. She’d been trying so damn hard to be better, and how could she be better if she killed her sister? Killed Vanya, who’d only wanted acceptance. But if she didn’t her brothers would die. Fuck, Allison didn’t want anyone to die! She did it, she pulled the trigger and saw her sister collapse like a marionette doll with the strings cut. Allison gasped but made no noise. She threw the gun away from her and dropped to her knees, holding Vanya’s body to her.

Fortunately, Five is able to bring them back to the beginning of the week and they start working on Vanya. They work on her powers and their relationships, Allison starts doing therapy sessions over the phone and it counts for the judge. Things are difficult and some days Allison wants so badly to go back to old habits but she resists. She wants a better future, she wants to have her daughter in her life and she wants to be happy. Finally, after months and months of therapy, Allison gets to see Claire and it’s all worth it when Claire comes bounding through the door. 

“Mommy!”

Allison holds her daughter close, cooing about how big Claire is and how much she’s missed her, she knows she’ll keep up with therapy, she’ll stay strong because Claire is worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I didn't really get into racism with Diego's chapter but the idea that the non-white Hargreeves didn't experience it is bullshit. It honestly only didn't make it into Diego's chapter because I wanted it to be a bit more uplifting and I kinda failed. I refuse to use racial slurs like the n-word even in writing so I allude to them instead. Allison is the most disconnected to her siblings out of all of the Hargreeves in my opinion so most of Allison's chapter revolves around her life away from her siblings.


End file.
